"A Father's Blessings"

The Rev. Bruce Russell-Jayne
June 15, 2008
Northern Hills Fellowship

Sermon

Our foremothers and forefathers brought us the world and our fathers and mothers brought us into the world. We honor them for their roles in creating us and the world we live in. Of course, parents’ work does not end with our conception or birth. Today I will focus on what a father can give his children besides his DNA. I speak from my personal masculine point of view which might require you women to stretch your perspectives a bit, but I believe that most of the points are true for women as well as men. Also, this discussion is not limited to biological fathers; good fathering can come from all kinds of fathers. A nurturing and guiding father can help children to create meaning from their lives and to experience a degree of peace. A father can help his children find strength and direction for their future. To receive good fathering is a blessing.

What is good fathering? In my lifelong quest for answers to that question, I came across Neil Chethik’s book, Father Loss, about how men come to terms with the deaths of their dads. In doing research for the book, which included interviews with hundreds of men, Chethik learned that key among the factors shaping a son’s reaction to his father’s death was the quality of the relationship when the father was alive. These sons’ stories reveal much about what sons need from fathers. Chethik concluded that for a son to deal with the loss of his dad, the father-son relationship needs to include affection, discipline, reconciliation and farewells.

I heard all four of these traits in Scott Russell Sanders’ relationship with his son Jesse. Sanders struggled at times to be a good father, but his overwhelming love for Jesse kept him on track. At first he tried to rationalize his love by saying that it was because his infant son needed so much from him. Soon he gave in to his exuberant, irrational love, which carried on even through the times when Jesse, as a teen, was temporarily unable to reflect that love back.

So, behind good fathering is love for the child, but it plays out in different ways.
Listen to Robert Hayden’s poem, Those Winter Sundays.
“Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold, ¬
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?”

Men often show their love thru actions more than words. Robert’s father took care of him by working to provide for the family, by taking a bit of the edge off the cold and by polishing his shoes. He wanted the boy to feel a little pride in himself. Robert, when he was a child, did not thank his father for his sacrifices, but with this poem he tells the world about them. Father’s Day is a time for thanking our dads, however belatedly.

Thanking our fathers is not always an easy or straightforward process. Robert’s poem is not just a thank you, it also hints at why the thank you was belated. The child Robert was ignorant of his father’s loneliness and afraid to speak with his father because of “Chronic angers” in the house. Unfortunately there are often barriers between children and their fathers. Many people have ambivalent feelings about their fathers. I feared my alcoholic, abusive father, and we never had a close relationship.

As a young adult, when I became a stepfather, my first rule for parenting was, “Don’t do what my father did,” but a negative example isn’t much to go on. I wasn’t a very good father at first, but I was determined to give my children loving parenting. I looked to other parents for guidance and tried new techniques. In order to be a better father to my children, I had to learn from other fathers what fathers are supposed to do. I had to allow myself to be fathered, to experience trusting and being trusted. I didn’t have a handle on fathering until after my divorce, when I finally came into my own as a single parent to my youngest child. When she went off to college I first read a Scott Russell Sanders’ essay, “To Eva, on Your Marriage,” in the Indiana University parents’ magazine. Sanders’ words to his daughter were wonderful – so loving, and they seemed to me to be just what my daughter would want to hear from her father. So, I gave her his essay and in so doing deputized Sanders to provide her some indirect fathering.

The things our parents taught us live on inside us. If some of what we learned from them doesn’t work for us in today’s world, we need to revisit those lessons and change how we react to them. Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh said, “Our mothers and fathers continue in us. Our liberation is their liberation. Whatever we do for our transformation is also for their transformation, and for our children and their children.”

Here is William Stafford’s poem With Kit, Age 7, at the Beach.
“We would climb the highest dune,
from there to gaze and come down:
the ocean was performing;
we contributed our climb.
Waves leapfrogged and came
straight out of the storm.
What should our gaze mean?
Kit waited for me to decide.
Standing on such a hill,
what would you tell your child?
That was an absolute vista.
Those waves raced far, and cold.
“How far could you swim, Daddy,
in such a storm?”
“As far as was needed,” I said,
and as I talked, I swam.”

Kit’s father has brought his daughter to view a great storm, and she wants to know how far he will go for her; she is asking for an emotional truth; “how far does my father’s heart reach out into the world? Her question pulls him into the wave-torn sea. At that moment he knows the answer in his heart: “As far as was needed.” Letting a child know that he is willing do what is necessary for a child is the foundational blessing a father can give a son or daughter.

A parent teaches a child that there are two sides to the love equation – that the parent gives the child some things, protection for example, and that the child has something to give also, something worth loving. Listen for the poet Rumi’s gratitude in Has Anyone Seen the Boy?

“Has anyone seen the boy who used to come here?
Round-faced trouble-maker, quick to find a joke,
slow to be serious, red shirt,
perfect coordination, sly, strong muscled,
with things always in his pocket: reed flute,
worn pick, polished and ready for his Talent
you know that one.
Have you heard stories about him?
Pharaoh and the whole Egyptian world
collapsed for such a Joseph.
I'd gladly spend years getting word
of him, even third or fourth hand.”

Out of parents love for their children comes the desire to protect them, and part of protecting them is teaching them discipline. Parents make a pact that they will be there not only to protect but also to teach, to give direction and set limits. Parents set limits that a child can push against and learn the value of authority.

Jungian psychologist, Robert Johnson, says that boys, and I include girls, on the way to adulthood, have to learn how to master the violent side of him or herself and integrate that power for aggression into her or his conscious personality. “That potentially destructive side must be struggled with, but it cannot be repressed. So it is a matter of the ego becoming strong enough so that it cannot be overcome by rage but the power in it can be used for conscious purposes, that is, to overcome obstacles in the path and achieve their goals.”

When children are young their fathers tower over them; they often seem gigantic. Because it is easy for discipline from a father to create fear in a child, we must be careful to use our power judiciously. Then, when children struggle with their own power, they can see that putting limits on its use can be beneficial. Sanders’ letter illustrates the value of letting a child who is struggling with authority know that the parents’ love will not go away when boundaries are crossed, that there is value in doing the hard work of reconciling difficulties in relationships.
Parents love for their children teaches them that they have value | that what happens to them matters to us and to others. Modeling discipline and reconciliation helps children know and control their own strengths so that they may use them in the service of their values as they try to act on them in the world. When they have left home and parents are no longer able to protect them anymore, their spirits will be tested, sometimes to the limits of their strength. Walter McDonald’s poem, What If I Didn’t Die Outside Saigon, gives us an example of surrogate fathering in a time of need.

“So what do you want? he growled inside the chopper,
strapping me roughly to the stretcher
as if I were already dead. “Jesus,” I swore,
delirious with pain, touching the hot mush of my legs.
“To see my wife. Go home, play with my kids,
help them grow up. You know.” His camouflaged face
was granite, a colonel or sergeant who'd seen it all.
He wore a parka in the rain, a stubby stale cigar
bit tight between his teeth, a nicked machete
like a scythe strapped to his back. He raised a fist
and held the chopper. He wore a gold wrist watch
with a bold sweep-second hand. The pilot glanced back,
stared, and looked away. Bored, the old man asked,
Then what? his cigar bobbing. I swallowed morphine
and choked, “More time. To think, plant trees,
teach my kids to fish and catch a ball.”
Yeah? he said, sucking the cigar, thinner
than he seemed at first. Through a torrent of rain,
I saw the jungle closing over me like night.
“And travel,” I said, desperate, “to see the world.
That's it, safe trips with loved ones. Long years
to do whatever. Make something of my life. Make love,
not war.” I couldn't believe it, wisecracking clichés,
about to die. He didn't smile, but nodded. So?
What then? “What then? Listen, that's enough,
isn't that enough?” His cigar puffed
into flame, he sucked and blew four perfect rings
which floated through the door and suddenly
dissolved. Without a word, he leaned and touched
my bloody stumps, unbuckled the stretcher straps
and tore the Killed-in-Action tag from my chest.
And I sat up today in bed, stiff-legged, out of breath,
an old man with a room of pictures of children
who've moved away, and a woman a little like my wife
but twice her age, still sleeping in my bed.”

The almost mortally wounded man in this story is called upon to be a warrior, not to fight in a death-producing war anymore but to pursue his own life. The grizzled colonel or sergeant guided him to focus not on his own pain but on his goals of seeing his wife and raising his kids. He helped him to know that he had what it takes to survive and be a contributor to the world. This sense that we are important and needed for something beyond ourselves may be the most important lesson that fathers can teach.

Listen to William Stafford’s poem, A Story That Could Be True.
“If you were exchanged in the cradle and
your real mother died
without ever telling the story
then no one knows your name,
and somewhere in the world
your father is lost and needs you
but you are far away.
He can never find
how true you are, how ready.
When the great wind comes
and the robberies of the rain
you stand in the corner shivering.
The people who go by¬—
you wonder at their calm.
They miss the whisper that runs
any day in your mind,
“Who are you really, wanderer?”¬—
and the answer you have to give
no matter how dark and cold
the world around you is:
“Maybe I'm a king.”

“Maybe I’m a king;” we can’t deny our potential. Each of us, males and females, are called upon to claim the responsibility once reserved for kings to act in the service of the larger world. It is within our authority to use our skill, creativity, and dedication to make the systems and institutions of our world more wholesome for life on this planet. We have within ourselves a miraculous power to become more mindful and compassionate human beings. It is important that we liberate ourselves from personal limitations we attribute to the parenting we received and continue the quest toward transforming our world into a more wholesome place. When we become better parents we not only improve our own and our children’s chances for peace and success in life, but we transform the legacy of our parents for future generations.

The practice of fathering can be done well. Furthermore, it can be taught and passed on from generation to generation. When it is done well, the very act of fathering has value for sustaining our society, one in which both father and child can experience and contribute to the goodness of human life.

I could go on, but alas you only give me one hour to preach. So before we go I want to perform the fatherly functions of giving you my blessings:
Thank you for all you have given me in this first year of my ministry amongst you. Our time together this year has given me strength. On my travels to General Assembly and elsewhere this summer, I will tell people that Northern Hills Fellowship is a warm and thriving church. May we continue to experience a supportive and challenging church life. You have what it takes to make our world more beautiful and wholesome. You are always in my heart. When I can’t be here physically, my spirit will be with you – as are the spirits of all the parents who have come before me. May the love that is in our hearts be a bond that unites us wherever our futures lie.

Blessed Be