Father's Day 2021

 My mind meanders through the yesterdays I’ve lived with so many who are no longer with me today.  I miss them. Some were “Father figures” for me. Some were “Mother figures” to me.  Each of them played an important role in my journey.  Each of them shaped my life.  Just a few days ago, listening to music, I heard Slim Whitman singing “Where Has Yesterday Gone?” The words of that song continue to sing in me.  The question “Where has yesterday gone” seems to have stuck in my mind.

I’m grateful for the yesterdays when I had my father and mother around.  I still wonder how and where they obtained the wisdom and the understanding they demonstrated as they raised me and my six siblings.  They really were extraordinary.  

I’m also grateful for the yesterdays when other men and women were there for me—my extended family—my surrogate mothers and fathers.  There are so many.  Bea Smith (a Sunday school teacher), Ken and Bonnie Mart (my boyhood pastor and his wife), Willie (who ran the garage next door), Julie (Willie’s sidekick and brother-in-law), Freda Roveda (who operated the tavern down the road), teachers and professors who took an interest in me, George, a parishioner (known as Pert to some), spiritual directors like Gordon, Mur, and Elton, who guided me through turbulent spiritual storms.  They were “Star Persons” who, like the light of Bethlehem’s star, led me and guided me along the roads of those yesterdays. Isn’t that what a father, a mother, is supposed to be and do—love us, lead us, and guide us along the path of life?

George, who was a “father” to me in so many ways through almost 40 years, wrote at the time of my father’s death:  “I think of my father everyday and sometimes many times during that day.  He will have been dead 58 years tomorrow.  He was 80 years old plus exactly six months….”

When Father took me by the hand,

Somehow the world seemed small,

The steeple’s point, the towering oak

Seemed only half so tall.

When Father took me by the hand,

Bright rainbows scanned the sky,

And hope and confidence were mine

When he was standing by.

When Father took me by the hand,

I had no thought of fear,

And even now, when trials come,

I feel his presence near.

Thank God, the Father of us all, who through those “many fathers” (and mothers)  of yesterday, took me by the hand.