I Want To Be My Father's Son
I have a mentor/friend/father-figure type of person in my life now who recently wrote about losing his mother very young. Those memories and feelings are very deep and personal; I tread very lightly here. And surely losing your mother is different. Still, I lost my dad when I was young. I remember watching a TV show called "Home Improvement" where the dad, "Tim Taylor", discusses losing his father young. (Actually, this show sticks out to me because it was often funny, and because he talks about this a lot.) I remember him saying that he idolized him while he was there, and did so when he was gone. They didn't live together long enough for the son to see the flaws in his father, to be his own man, to even fight with him. I probably have an idealized image of him; then again, if he was anything like his brothers, he was a good man, so far as that is possible for man. Heck, my mother, his ex-wife, has nary a poor word to say about him. And she never did, in the seven years they were divorced while he lived. He spoke a word to his sons from beyond the grave via a poem he kept that I'll bet he meant to give us when the time was right. His widow gave it to us a few years ago, when the time was right. I've only read it once; it was too hard to do more than that. It's on my desk, hidden. It's a pretty good restatement of, "Do not worry about tomorrow..." as the Lord taught us. My brother is just like my father, or how they describe him, and definitely lives this out. He's a good man, too. We could all use some forgiveness, and we all need Jesus, whether we know it or not. But if "good man" doesn't describe most of the men in my father's family, it has no meaning. So if my father, my uncles, my brother, and whomever else are "goats" at the Resurrection (Matthew 25) by way of sin, I can live with my Lord's judgment. Who is more just than he? But I hope and trust that they are not held to account for ignorance caused by others' sin. (Like sketchy priests.) In any case, for the record, when I hear the words, "Roman Catholic Church" I do not think "Whore of Babylon who perverted the gospel." Rather, I think, "Those who, in the name of Christ, committed the bodies of my family to the ground in the hope of resurrection." Theology gets real simple when you're talking about life and death. Jesus. Forgiveness. Resurrection. Eternal life. I've got more to say, but this is all for now.
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