Robert Hayden
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his
clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with
cracked hands that ached
from labor
in the weekday weather made
banked fires
blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I’d wake and
hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the
rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I
would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had
driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I
know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?
Robert
Hayden, “Those Winter Sundays”
Discernment
is key to the religious life.
The roots of
the word dis/cern mean to divide, to
separate. To decide, what to keep, what to let go of.
Whatever our
beliefs, whatever our faith tradition, we become mature in faith when we
practice discernment….we become self-differentiated, no longer at the mercy of
every thought, memory, and impression. We discern. We decide.
This is
maturity. This is faith.
We live in
a time when the patriarchy has died, or
is dying, at least in Western society. Where it isn’t defeated, it’s doing a
clownish dance, like the American Bishops who are trying to bring the nuns back
in line, (can you say GO SISTERS!) but the power struggle has shifted, away
from male/female; to have/have-not, or at least the 99%/the 1% with far less
regard to gender. What does that mean for Fathers?
In my
lifetime…. Fathers, who were ALWAYS RIGHT, aligned with God/Santa Claus/the
President/the Pope and the preachers/ the military/everything powerful and
productive, have been unseated,
attacked, demeaned, examined, analyzed, prodded, put in their places, and
thoroughly mocked. Once “Father Knows Best,” proud and parental, dads are more
like father of the bride, Steve Martin style, buffoon-ish and berated.
What
happened?
We grew up.
We got
educated.
The UU
church and other faith traditions began to question the patriarchy that had
ruled for centuries. In our tradition it started with programs like Cakes for the Queen of Heaven,
where women and men learned that it was not always this way, that once women
had power, prestige, and authority. Women became ordained in most
denominations. Women are no longer understood to be the property of their
fathers, or their husbands, at least in this culture and in Western, European
culture, and we surely trust this evolution will continue.
Question: In rejecting the patriarchy and its control
and demeaning of women, which we women internalized, must we reject and even
despise our fathers?
I am
speaking most directly to women and men of my generation and a bit beyond,
women forty and over, whose dads still strove to be the traditional “father,”
the last of what has become a dying breed: we didn’t know it, but we were the
daughters and sons of men who were confused by a shifting and turbulent future
and who were fighting to maintain and preserve what they saw as their duty and
their obligation as men in an increasingly chaotic world.
My dad was
nothing if not the quintessential twentieth century father.
He was
stern, quick to judge, had very high standards, and was never, ever, ever, not
once, not even one time ever in my whole entire life! ....was he questioned.
He had to
raise twin five year old girls and a seven year old boy after the sudden death
of his wife. His answer was to marry very quickly, someone whom he saw as able
to do the task. His work at an executive job in Philadelphia and later stiff
drinks and many outdoor hobbies and pursuits filled his time enough that he
never examined that choice, or, if he did, never discussed it with us.
My own life
has been a long series of choices, many of which I now see were attempts to
please my Father. If he was pleased, he never said so. He said two things that
I should have let go of long before I did: one was, “You could be Miss America
someday!” (we always watched it on our B&W TV). The other was, “Why go to
college when you will just get married and have children?”
I stayed in
my own first marriage longer than I should have, just because I didn’t want to
admit any failure. But he was still living when I divorced and I did something
I will never regret. He was in his eighties then (he was nearly 50 when I was
born, having led a long and colorful bachelor /sportsman life) and had suffered
some health problems. I went to his home every week and took him out for lunch,
then spent the afternoon talking with him. I asked him lots of questions about
the grandparents I’d never met, his childhood, his life before we were born, my
mother. What I learned could fill … an index card. He usually changed the
subject.
Still,
having tried to make this contact, I finally stopped longing to please him. I
began to understand that his own mother had been a demanding perfectionist. I
didn’t have to carry that forward within myself, or with my own children.
I’ve done a
fairly good (but far from perfect, which is just fine) job of incorporating
many, many good aspects of my father into my own being. That’s how I honor him
today, Father’s Day, and almost every day.
Just a few
of those are:
·
He
was scrupulously honest, hated lying, deceit, and manipulation.
·
He
had no toleration for fools (shotgun)
·
He
loved the outdoors: plants, trees, birds
·
He
was a great cook, and a passionate eater and food connoisseur
·
He
was a great reader, and loved music, although not a musician himself
·
Loved
thunderstorms and sitting on a screened porch
·
Fresh
cut flowers, hated anything plastic
·
He
had a good sense of humor and warm heart
·
He
would have loved to travel more.. life’s circumstances prevented that, so I
feel he’s with me when I do!
·
He
admired and cultivated order, symmetry and simple beauty
I am 100%
certain that he loved me. This I choose to keep; the rest I can let go.
He lived to
see his granddaughter whom I named after his beloved wife, my mother Marjorie.
He held her when she was just a month old and looked at her with such
tenderness and said something I have told her many times. I think it showed
that even though he had to live through almost ninety years in which fatherhood
went from being on the pedestal to being in the dustbin, and even though he
must have been facing the end of his own life rather confused about the future
of the family and of humanity, not being a person of traditional religious
beliefs. He said, not, “She will sure be pretty,” or “I hope she finds a good
husband,” or, “She’s my granddaughter,”
but: “She will be a strong woman.” And,
she is.
I hope you
carry the best of your father or forefathers within you today and every day.
AMEN
