Yesterday was Father’s Day in the United States. For some it was a day to truly honor a beloved parent and to gather the extended family. For others, it was a reminder of how the cult of Family is sometimes exalted over the reality of human lives, a painful jab at those who were born and raised outside the cookie cutter model of the late 20th century, Western, intact and supposedly nurturing, nuclear family.
Elizabeth Kaeton has done a masterful job of bringing both perspectives to light, serendipitously with the Lectionary’s Old Testament and Gospel readings. I recommend her sermon it in its entirety, but the following excerpt is what, for me, hit the ball out of the ballpark:
Today is Father’s Day. For some, this is a day filled with exquisite pain, and this morning is filled with dreaded expectations of the same things which, for others, will be nothing less than pure delight. For still others, it will be a day filled with loss and grief, regret and remorse. Why? Because we are human. We make a mess of our lives as easily as drawing a breath. We hurt the ones we love. We are David and take what is not ours. We are Simon and resent what others are able to give.
Today is Father’s Day and it is no coincidence that the scriptural message is about love and forgiveness. We all need to hear about love and forgiveness, but especially parents who, even the best among us, mess up from time to time – some, even more than their share. Today, especially today, many need to hear a word about love and forgiveness. For ourselves. For the ones who are or were our parents, especially our fathers. For the fathers we are. For the fathers we never were. For the fathers we’ll never be.
Love, Forgiveness and Father's Day at Telling Secrets. (Do go there and read the rest).
Elizabeth's words speak to the kind of experience most of us have lived in a variety of circumstances. Those of who find ourselves parents, in whatever kind of family we may end up raising children, face no easy task. We let ourselves and them down day in an day out, as we often feverishly try to do our best, papering over our flaws and weaknesses, all the while demanding more of them than we managed ourselves, or demanding something very different, some things that might have been beneficial for us when we were growing up, but may be of little or no use to them. Being a child of a flawed human being is not easy either. We don’t know what to make of the many mixed messages we get as our parent(s) inevitably preach some of what they do not practice and are sometimes blinded by the lenses by which they perceive us, our futures, and their pasts.
Learning to love and forgive each other is something that may take a lifetime to get nearly right, if ever. Sometimes it is harder with family than with friends, acquaintances, or even strangers, but, almost inevitably, it is where we all start. Family isn’t everything, and some families are so broken and hurtful that some bonds are best left loose. Yet whether we are born into them, find our own parents and children to honor and nurture, families are where we begin to learn to need and serve others, with love, compassion, and care, the best we can, with God's grace and the example of perfect love God has given us in his Son.
6 comments:
Hi Klady... I've been reading lots and lots of your posts this afternoon, and decided to respond here. This fragment of Elizabeth's sermon is truly lovely and really tugs at me, from both angles. I spent my 20's in therapy about my relationship with my mother; now I could spend all my therapy time in conversation about my own failings as a mother!
I loved reading about your full, full life, your daughter the soccer star, and nuns and bishops playing lacrosse in heaven!
Blessings, and Pax, C.
Thanks so much, Cecilia. Your own writings have startled, touched, and enriched me in many ways.
So little time for all the therapy! Thank God we do not to figure every bit of it out in order to love and be healed.
I especially like the prayers in the Book of Common Prayer that speak to our sometimes not knowing or understanding, even to the point of not knowing exactly what to pray for, such as:
"Almighty God, the fountain of all wisdom, you know our necessities before we ask and our ignorance in asking: Have compassion on our weakness, and mercifully give us those things which for our unworthiness we dare not, and for our blindness we cannot ask; through the worthiness of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen."
Kathy,
I am deeply, deeply honored to have one of my sermons referenced here in this space.
Thank you.
Thank you, Elizabeth. It was a sermon I very much needed to read at the time and was happy to share it with anyone I could.
Actually, some Catholics do know that there are Episcopal nuns. On the discussion list Sister-L (for women religious and those who specialize in the study of issues concerning them) there are members of both communions, and when Episcopal women founded a Carmelite convent a few years ago, they received great help and support and friendship from the Catholic Carmelites of the Baltimore Carmel.
Jane, glad to hear we (RCs and Episcopolians) have been working closely together in some communities, and if there is any ignorance elsewhere, it is no doubt mutual. It's just sometimes funny to observe in our predominantly Catholic area how shocked and surprised many RCs are when they encounter our high masses and votive candles at our weddings and funerals -- they've literally never heard of "us" -- nuns, clergy, laity alike. But there is much for us to do to learn from each other and do better in working together all round.
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