Feliz Dia de Los Padres!

There are two parts to my post about this Fathers’ Day. They are hardly related by anything other than fatherhood, but they are both catalytic for positive change.

Part 1

Although I do wish every dad a happy Padres’ Day today, in lieu of gifts I genuinely want to receive (and give) prayers for dads. I think most of us are aware of the consequences of fatherless households, and the burdens that too many mothers bear alone, but we don’t grasp the magnitude.

Fathers: please step up and claim the love we have for you. Like building a wall in a strange and dangerous land, keep building with one hand and holding a weapon in the other to protect your families. I’m not talking about physical weapons (per se, of course), but mental and emotional ones. Love your wife and kids with reckless abandon, and defend your hope for them and in them until the end.

Part 2

If you haven’t seen the movie Smoke Signals, I highly recommend it. This poem comes from that film. It is dour but purposely driven towards healing.

How Do We Forgive Our Fathers?
by Dick Lourie

How do we forgive our Fathers?
Maybe in a dream
Do we forgive our Fathers for leaving us too often or forever
when we were little?

Maybe for scaring us with unexpected rage
or making us nervous
because there never seemed to be any rage there at all.

Do we forgive our Fathers for marrying or not marrying our Mothers?
For Divorcing or not divorcing our Mothers?

And shall we forgive them for their excesses of warmth or coldness?
Shall we forgive them for pushing or leaning
for shutting doors
for speaking through walls
or never speaking
or never being silent?

Do we forgive our Fathers in our age or in theirs
or their deaths
saying it to them or not saying it?

If we forgive our Fathers what is left?