“Scorning the Pomp of must and shall my father moved through dooms of feel”*

by chuckofish

So Father’s Day was on Sunday. It did cause me to pause a moment and reflect on my own pater familias, who died almost 30 years ago. The only picture I have of him with his family is this one, taken no doubt to send to his own mother.

I have no photo of him with just me. Although we spent a lot of time together because we went back and forth to school every day, I don’t remember any conversations we had. As relationships go, it was pretty shallow. I have no idea if he was proud of me. He certainly never told me so. I just assumed he loved me. I mean, I didn’t feel unloved, like so many people nowadays seem to feel. I was proud of him. At least until I found out he was an alcoholic at age 11, and then I was embarrassed and probably ashamed. I was an anxious child, and that knowledge didn’t help.

I survived and I am grateful to him for several things. He went to work every day and earned a living and managed to put three children through college. After that, he kind of fell apart. He passed on some pretty good genes. He stayed married to our mother. He did the best he could, considering his own father semi-abandoned him and his mother to go cover the Spanish Civil War or something like that. What did he know? At least I had John Wayne and Ward Cleaver. What kind of role models to kids have today?

Well, maybe I learned something from the way I grew up. It may have been a negative lesson, but the results, I think, have been positive.

Saturday was Juneteenth, which I blogged about back in 2013. Everyone is talking about it now, but of course, we were ahead of everyone.

I watched The Professionals (1966) to celebrate. This has become a personal tradition. (I ❤️ Woody Strode.)

This is worth your time reading. He articulates what I am always trying to say. “Our secular world groans as well but doesn’t know where to find hope. Secular solutions only exacerbate the problem, leaving us wanting.”

The weather has been hot, hot, hot–St. Louis style hot. Whenever I go out to pull some weeds, trim some ivy or plant some annuals, I wilt like arugula and have to retreat inside. C’est la vie. Today is the longest day in the year, but things should be cooling off after the big storms we had over the weekend. I am grateful we did not lose our power like some unfortunate people.

So a belated Happy Fathers Day to all you good fathers out there and grace to you, and peace, from God our Father.

Let’s go, Daddy-o!

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)

*e.e. cummings