Letter to my Father

:::on fathers day:::

Well dad, you finally made that big trip to the Holy Land (**Literally, for those with overly active imaginations. My dad is in Jerusalem now with my mom!). I’m so proud of you. As I write these words, I imagine the sun is setting over the Dome of the Rock and you have likely placed many prayers in the sacred wall for all your children. Your life has been directed by an unshakable faith in the man they call Jesus and your role as a father.

For much of my life I feel I have mocked you for this. Western culture does a fine job of undervaluing the most sacred of careers. I remember after the first of many major economic downturns when you lost your job. What I don’t remember is you complaining much about it. If you did, you managed to keep that from us. You went ahead and took any job you could. Working late nights at Target, early mornings delivering papers. Whatever job you could find to keep us all fed, to save money to put your boys through college.

A couple decades later and here I am, with a wife and child of my own. I have chosen a life very different than yours. In so many ways you could have reacting with disgust at my life choices. I have not walked the same religious road as you, I have not adopted the same work ethic. I openly criticize the church and, as an educator, now make a meager living off creating entire classes for students themed in refuting the most concrete of views you have held much of your life. And yet, you have loved and supported me, unconditionally, through all 42 of my meandering, chaotic years.

I still loathe capitalism. I still find the American interpretations of The Christ terrifying, and Lord knows I can’t stomach life in the Midwest. Yet now that I have been humbled in such a way as to have my previously perceived identity utterly shattered, I am overwhelmed with the deep recognition of your life’s great work. You did everything for me and my brother. And I am so grateful.

Modernity has confused us. We glorify individuality to the point of insanity and the result is atrophy of the most sacred of human impulses. We were created to serve the next generation.  Yet now our world offers another story, one that honors our personal space, our ability to pursue our own curious definitions of happiness, “freedom” and liberty over the needs of the collective, over the children and the Earth Herself. I cannot say if you orchestrated your life’s navigation with a deep intellectual understanding of all this or if, you simply held the ancient, now very much endangered cultural seeds of the old world in your heart and were able to keep them alive enough for me and my brother to help them sprout in us. And now, with the birth of your granddaughter, gods willing, those sprouts grow roots. Whatever it was that moved you, I offer thanks for the lifetime of dedication to serving this holy impulse, because it continues to redirect my bitter heart towards a path of love, towards an intergenerational journey of hope.

It is exhausting being a father. And as I now spend most of my days living abroad, where societies are typically set up drastically different than here, I can attest to the troubling reality that modern America may be the most challenging place in the world to raise a child. We simply do not value the sacred work of raising children nearly enough. And yet, you did it. With all odds against you, you did it. There are moments I have daily where I feel there is no way I can keep up like this. As soon as your granddaughter rises in the morning until late at night, she is demanding every ounce of energy I have. My beloved wife and I have few, if any, moments alone together anymore. And as we are now in America, where money is valued more than our relations with community and Land, I am forced, as you were, to work some 50+ hours a week to make ends meet. It’s a mad life here, pops. I regularly feel like I am drowning. And I only have one child. You had two… and those two were boys!

Somewhere along the line, the self-proclaimed “civilized” world decided we no longer needed elders, no longer needed to create initiations marking major life turnings. As such, for all intense and purposes, we are all forced to go it alone, to wing it. If privileged enough to have a little extra time and money we can purchase classes that help us learn certain techniques for how to better father, or we can join a group on Reddit to vent our frustrations. Maybe we can pay someone to watch our kids occasionally so the parents can have a night out. Either way, it ain’t like it is in the bedtime books we read your granddaughter anymore! We forfeited a world centered around raising children and supporting the elderly for a world of hyper-individuality and techno-obsessed conveniences. The result seems to be an increasing discomfort and impatience for being around children. This is beyond heartbreaking and as our government actively separates parents from children in a gross effort to frighten friends from other nations from coming to our great stolen land, we all are being indoctrinated, conscious of it or not, into a strange new worldview that has increasingly little interest in the laborious, humbling, exhausting work of living a life that is entirely built for the benefit of another.

Living this way of course, shatters one self-identity. As soon as you are initiated into a life of service that is no longer about you and your own desires to get what you want, whether it is a big house on the hill, political domination, a fancy new mountain bike, control over what books can and cannot be read, an operation that makes you look like a 25 year old, etc. your view of self is quickly disembodied and re-orchestrated into a flood of genuine needs pertaining to a life system not concerned with whatever it is you think you want but instead the true needs of another. And when you surrender to this, as you did, “you” become invisible. Modernity hates this. It’s hard to post invisibility on Instagram.

You were the quiet force that kept us alive. As we played all day with mother, you, probably with an ache in your heart, forced by empire to work for their strange systems when an ancient memory in you knew you too should have been able to play with us, off you went, heroically, to make sure we could afford a roof to sleep under and always have food in our bellies. And you did so with dignity. Whatever hat you had to wear; I recall you looking sharp with it on! You held your head high and worked with pride. And when you came home, you didn’t go straight to bed (as I often do) or go drinking with boys. You spent time with us. You shared stories of hope, not fear. And you did this again and again, until finally we left your home and went on to build homes of our own.

It took me 40 years to see this. It’s funny how life works. I am amazed how you endure. I am struck by your strength. I hope it isn’t too late to tell you thank you, poppa. As you walk now where He walked, reflecting over a legendary life of service, may you find pride and peace in your heart today, knowing that your boy, who now finds it hard to define his identity any longer, is certain of one thing, he is your son and is very proud to be so.

Happy Fathers day.

I love you.

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