Meditations on fathers, significant male relationships, and themes from Romans 5
Everything that you think, you thought that you are, you have received from the cosmos, from parents – including your body. — Thich Nhat Hanh
We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God’s grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise. — Romans 5: 2b (From The Message translation of Romans 5:1-5)
Song: Father and Son by Cat Stevens
Song: Father to Son by Phil Collins
Song: Father and Daughter by Paul Simon
Song: Where Is the Love? by The Black Eyed Peas
Questions for this Meditation
- Who has modeled male love and presence in your life?
- What gifts have you received from the father-figure(s) in your life?
- In what ways does a father-figure offer you a sense of belonging or connection to meaningful gifts? Alternately, in what ways does a father-figure separate you from a sense of being loved and connected?
- If you are called a child of God, what does God look like to you or mean to you? And how do you resemble God?
The Gift (excerpt) — Li-Young Lee
To pull the metal splinter from my palm my father recited a story in a low voice. I watched his lovely face and not the blade. Before the story ended, he’d removed the iron sliver I thought I’d die from. I can’t remember the tale, but hear his voice still, a well of dark water, a prayer. And I recall his hands, two measures of tenderness he laid against my face, the flames of discipline he raised above my head …
Father and Creator: Spiritual Originators
And I say the sacred hoop of my people was one of the many hoops that
made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center
grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother
and one father. — Black Elk
When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy. — Rumi
I was born by myself but carry the spirit and blood of my father, mother
and my ancestors. So I am really never alone. My identity is through
that line. — Ziggy Marley
I imagine God to be like my father. My father was always the voice of
certainty in my life. Certainty in the wisdom, certainty in the path,
certainty always in God. For me God is certainty in everything.
Certainty that everything is good and everything is God. — Yehuda Berg
The Genesis account does not say “Let me make humankind in my own image, but let us make humankind in our own image according to our likeness”
This is not a “me” God, but a “we” God. God from the beginning is, not
God as bad math, but God as community. The triune nature of God
assures that God is in fellowship with God’s self. In the Beginning is
Creator, Word and Spirit all co-mingling to bring forth creation. Here
God creates communally. — Nadia Bolz-Weber
An almost perfect relationship with his father was the earthly root of all his wisdom. — C.S. Lewis
If you have a beautiful voice, don’t think that you have created that beautiful voice for yourself. It has been transmitted by your ancestors, your parents. If you have the talent of a painter, don’t think that you have invented that talent. It has been transmitted to you as a seed. So everything you have thought that you are has come from the cosmos, from your ancestors. The water in you, the heat in you, the air in you, the soil in you, belong to the water outside, the soil outside. Without the forest how could you be? Without your father and mother how could you be there this moment? Therefore you say, in wisdom, that you are nothing. Everything that you think, you thought that you are, you have received from the cosmos, from parents – including your body … You belong to the stream of life. — Thich Nhat Hanh
I’m very moved by chaos theory, and that sense of energy. That quantum physics. We don’t really, in Hindu tradition, have a father figure of a God. It’s about cosmic energy, a little spark of which is inside every individual as the soul. — Bharati Mukherjee
Ideals of Fatherhood
No man stands taller than when he stoops to help a child. — Abraham Lincoln
Anyone can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a dad, and
that’s why I call you dad, because you are so special to me. You taught
me the game and you taught me how to play it right. — Wade Boggs
Peace is the beauty of life. It is sunshine. It is the smile of a child,
the love of a mother, the joy of a father, the togetherness of a
family. It is the advancement of man, the victory of a just cause, the
triumph of truth. — Menachem Begin
Son, brother, father, lover, friend. There is room in the heart for all
the affections, as there is room in heaven for all the stars. — Victor Hugo
My father raised us to step toward trouble rather than to step away from it. — Justin Trudeau
It is easier for a father to have children than for children to have a real father. — Pope John XXIII
I wasn’t anything special as a father. But I loved them and they knew it. — Sammy Davis, Jr.
Every father should remember one day his son will follow his example, not his advice. ―Charles Kettering
My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me. ―Jim Valvano
My father didn’t tell me how to live. He lived and let me watch him do it. ―Clarence Budington Kelland
The quality of a father can be seen in the goals, dreams and aspirations he sets not only for himself, but for his family. ―Reed Markham
He adopted a role called being a father so that his child would have something mythical and infinitely important: a protector. ―Tom Wolfe
I’ve said it before, but it’s absolutely true: My mother gave me my drive, but my father gave me my dreams. Thanks to him, I could see a future. — Liza Minnelli
Where Is the Love? (song lyrics)
— Performed by Black-Eyed Peas
Songwriters — Allan Pineda / Giorgio Hesdey Tuinfort / Jaime Gomez /
Jayceon Taylor / Justin Timberlake / Khaled Khaled / Rakim Mayers /
Will Adams
People killin’ people dyin’
Children hurtin’, I hear them cryin’
Can you practice what you preachin’?
Would you turn the other cheek again?
Mama, mama, mama, tell us what the hell is goin’ on
Can’t we all just get along?
Father, father, father help us
Send some guidance from above
‘Cause people got me, got me
Questioning
(Where’s the love)
Yo what’s going on with the world, momma
(Where’s the love)
Yo people living like they ain’t got no mommas
(Where’s the love)
I think they all distracted by the drama and
Attracted to the trauma, mamma
(Where’s the love)
I think they don’t understand the concept or
The meaning of karma
(Where’s the love)
Overseas, yeah they trying to stop terrorism
(Where’s the love)
Over here on the streets the police shoot
The people put the bullets in ’em
(Where’s the love)
But if you only got love for your own race
(Where’s the love)
Then you’re gonna leave space for others to discriminate
(Where’s the love)
And to discriminate only generates hate
And when you hate then you’re bound to get irate
Madness is what you demonstrate
And that’s exactly how hate works and operates
Man, we gotta set it straight
Take control of your mind and just meditate
And let your soul just gravitate
To the love, so the whole world celebrate it
People killin’ people dyin’
Children hurtin’, I hear them cryin’
Can you practice what you preachin’?
Would you turn the other cheek again?
Mama, mama, mama, tell us what the hell is goin’ on
Can’t we all just get along?
Father, Father, Father help us
Send some guidance from above
‘Cause people got me, got me questioning
(Where’s the love)
It just ain’t the same, always in change
(Where’s the love)
New days are strange, is the world insane?
(Where’s the love)
Nation droppin’ bombs killing our little ones
(Where’s the love)
Ongoing suffering as the youth die young
(Where’s the love)
Where’s the love when a child gets murdered
Or a cop gets knocked down
Black lives not now
Everybody matter to me
All races, y’all don’t like what I’m sayin’? Haterade, tall cases
Everybody hate somebody
Guess we all racist
Black Eyed Peas do a song about love and y’all hate this
All these protests with different colored faces
We was all born with a heart
Why we gotta chase it?
And every time I look around
Every time I look up, every time I look down
No one’s on a common ground
(Where’s the love)
And if you never speak truth then you never know how love sounds
(Where’s the love)
And if you never know love then you never know God, wow
(Where’s the love)
Where’s the love y’all? I don’t, I don’t know
Where’s the truth y’all? I don’t know
People killin’ people dyin’
Children hurtin’, I hear them cryin’
Could you practice what you preach?
Would you turn the other cheek?
Father, Father, Father help us
Send some guidance from above
‘Cause people got me, got me questioning
(Where’s the love)
(Where’s the love)
Love is the key
(Where’s the love)
Love is the answer
(Where’s the love)
Love is the solution
(Where’s the love)
(Where’s the love)
They don’t want us to love
(Where’s the love)
Love is powerful
(Where’s the love)
(Where’s the love)
My mama asked me why I never vote never vote
‘Cause police men want me dead and gone (Dead and gone)
That election looking like a joke (Such a joke)
And the weed man still sellin’ dope
Somebody gotta give these niggas hope (Please hope)
All he ever wanted was a smoke (My gosh)
Said he can’t breathe with his hands in the air
Layin’ on the ground died from a choke
(Where’s the love)
I feel the weight of the world on my shoulders
As I’m gettin’ older y’all people gets colder
Most of us only care about money makin’
Selfishness got us followin’ the wrong direction
Wrong information always shown by the media
Negative images is the main criteria
Infecting the young minds faster than bacteria
Kids wanna act like what they see in the cinemas
What happened to the love and the values of humanity?
(Where’s the love)
What happened to the love and the fairness and equality?
(Where’s the love)
Instead of spreading love we’re spreading animosity
(Where’s the love)
Lack of understanding leading us away from unity
(Where’s the love)
Meditations on serving angels in the guise of strangers, and the role of patriarchs in our lives.
The Gift — Li-Young Lee
To pull the metal splinter from my palm
my father recited a story in a low voice.
I watched his lovely face and not the blade.
Before the story ended, he’d removed
the iron sliver I thought I’d die from.
I can’t remember the tale,
but hear his voice still, a well
of dark water, a prayer.
And I recall his hands,
two measures of tenderness
he laid against my face,
the flames of discipline
he raised above my head.
Had you entered that afternoon
you would have thought you saw a man
planting something in a boy’s palm,
a silver tear, a tiny flame.
Had you followed that boy
you would have arrived here,
where I bend over my wife’s right hand.
Look how I shave her thumbnail down
so carefully she feels no pain.
Watch as I lift the splinter out.
I was seven when my father
took my hand like this,
and I did not hold that shard
between my fingers and think,
Metal that will bury me,
christen it Little Assassin,
Ore Going Deep for My Heart.
And I did not lift up my wound and cry,
Death visited here!
I did what a child does
when he’s given something to keep.
I kissed my father.
Hospitality
The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. – Ghandi
People will forget what you said, forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. – Maya Angelou
In the cherry blossom’s shade there’s no such thing as a stranger. ― Kobayashi Issa
Hospitality means primarily the creation of free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines. ― Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life
There is great value in being able to say “yes” when people ask if there is anything they can do. By letting people pick herbs or slice bread instead of bringing a salad, you make your kitchen a universe in which you can give completely and ask for help. The more environments with that atmospheric makeup we can find or create, the better. ― Tamar Adler, An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace
But entertaining isn’t a sport or a competition. It’s an act of love, if you let it be. You can twist it and turn it into anything you want—a way to show off your house, a way to compete with your friends, a way to earn love and approval. Or you can decide that every time you open your door, it’s an act of love, not performance or competition or striving. You can decide that every time people gather around your table, your goal is nourishment, not neurotic proving. You can decide. ― Shauna Niequist, Bread and Wine: A Love Letter to Life Around the Table with Recipes
On Patriarchs
The monarch oak, the patriarch of the trees,
Shoots rising up, and spreads by slow degrees.
Three centuries he grows, and three he stays.
Supreme in state, and in three more decays. — John Dryden
It is a wise father that knows his own child. — William Shakespeare
My father used to say it’s never too late to do what you want to do. And he said, ‘You never know what you can accomplish until you try.’ — Michael Jordan
I imagine God to be like my father. My father was always the voice of certainty in my life. Certainty in wisdom, certainty in the path, certainty always in God. For me God is certainty in everything. Certainty that everything is good and everything is God. — Yehuda Berg
Son, brother, father, lover, friend. There is room in the heart for all of the affections, as there is room in the heaven for all of the stars. — Victor Hugo
I imagined that the right name might be Father, and I imagined all that that name would imply: the love, the compassion, the taking offense, the disappointment, the anger, the bearing of wounds, the weeping of tears, the forgiveness … — Wendell Berry
It is easier for a father to have children than for children to have a real father. — Pope John XXIII
Were man to live coeaval with the sun, the patriarch-pupil would be learning still. — Edward Young