Father Knows Best, part deux

I am on high alert. That song is going to keep popping up everywhere until I have figured out what Dad is trying to show me. What have I missed? Where are his finger prints? Where did he sprinkle the pixie dust and why am I missing it?

I need to slow down and reflect. But when?

Along comes Fathers Day. And I take the kids to Mass. Now I might find a time to reflect.

Father's homily is much like the one he delivered on Mothers Day. He is honoring fathers for their noble, difficult, often thankless job raising their children responsibly and thoughtfully and lovingly. He is acknowledging that the day may bring sorrow to some - because a father or a father's child is separated from them in some way, or one has died, or there is some other kind of brokenness.

I am dwelling on that when the visiting priest takes to the pulpit to talk about an organization that feeds the hungry in some place that sounds perfectly hideous. My daughter the bleeding heart is digging through my purse because she can not believe how slow I am at whipping out my checkbook when a mere $35 will feed a family of four for three months so they do not have to eat the little crackers they make out of mud.

But I am back on the brokenness thing. And that is where I find Dad's fingerprints.

They are here all over this latest family brokenness. Not that he caused it. No, he's not malicious . Prankster, yes. Monster, no.

You've heard the encouraging little statement, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." (or as J. says, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade, and then go find someone to whom life has given Jack Daniels.")

I think Dad took this latest horror with J. and Sandy and made us some lemonade.

The widening chasm between J. and me and all the various members of his family had appeared irreparable. Broken. But the unthinkable cruelty heaped on J. by his former wife has been so sad, so awful, so incredulous, that it has pushed us all to our limits, and remarkably, unbelievably, UNTHINKABLY, toward each other.

My Dad grew up with J.'s mom. Did I tell you that? They were lifelong friends. It would have been his proudest moment and his greatest disappointment to have had me go toe-to-toe and dominate in an argument with Endora. The rift that grew between us would have made him very sad.

Neither of us is without sin. And both of us are proud, feisty, take-no-prisoners, self-righteous MOTHERS.

So it would have taken a common tragedy - a Sandy-sized attack - to snap our heads around to the realization that there are bonds and commitments and loves that unite us more strongly than anything that could tear us apart.

So it is there in church, thinking about brokenness, that I find my sign. Dad, and maybe J.'s dad too, took the sadness and misfortune and challenges that had recently befallen us, and helped us to turn them into something peaceful. Gave us a reason to reconsider our feelings and actions, and compelled us to do something good.

I am startled to realize that I have been so consumed with my own thoughts that I have literally gone through the motions for the last 20 minutes. The Mass has ended and we are going in peace. Father is processing out of the church and the closing hymn is starting.

And remarkably, it is Dad's very favorite hymn, How Great Thou Art.
"O Lord my God,
When I in awesome wonder
Consider all
The works Thy Hand hath made..."

Thanks, Pop. I got your sign.