For Father's Day

Fathers Day did not begin as a religious day as Mothers Day did.   Fathers Day is simply about honouring Fathers.
It took sixty years for Father’s Day to become  part of the fabric of society.    Father’s Day is to celebrate Fathers, fatherhood, paternal bonds and the influence of fathers in society.
Anyone who is not a father can celebrate International Mens Day which is on November 19th
The first Father’s Day was in 1910 as a response to Mother’s Day.    Some people agitated for it but it was always seen as a commercial gimmick - to sell gifts for men.
A mining accident in Fairmont Virginia in 1908 killed 360 men from the small community, 250 of whom were fathers.    They set up a memorial to those fathers for the benefit of nearly a thousand children who were left fatherless that day.
Fathers Day was officially written into American Life by Richard Nixon who signed a Presidential decree in 1972.  
When I was in full time ministry we used to celebrate Father’s Day with a bowls match at one of the Bolton pubs - everyone was invited - the only thing we fathers did was try not to be defeated by the women.
I am one of the worst qualified people to say much about Father’s Day - since my  own father died early in my life.   It was the day after my seventh birthday and I was at boarding school - and I wasn’t told until I went home at the end of term in July.
I can remember being upset and I can also remember wondering later why I was upset.    He was a civil engineer and had been away most of the time during the war working on projects.   I suppose I hardly knew him.   He was a person in my life - a sort of presence who wasn’t there but was always talked about,
‘Your Faher will do this, or your Father will do that,  if you don’t eat your cabbage, your Father will be cross when he comes home’
I do remember one great Christmas when he was home.  
I grew up in an era when everyone was supposed to have a father - absent fathers were a bit of a rarity..
What did I miss?     I have no idea, I can only speculate.    Would I be a different person now if I had known my father through to his old age and eventual death?     How would he have influenced my life?
Would I be someone different - where would I be??
And of course I am quite happy being whom I am - I can’t imagine myself any different.
And I have known many people who have had a bad relationship with their fathers and it had affected their whole outlook on life and it had affected their personalities in some way.   Maybe I have been fortunate not to have had that experience.
When I look back now, I surprise myself that I did not actually invent a virtual dad for myself.    I could have had a pretend Dad, whom I could consult and imagine telling me what I should be doing with my life.   I could have pretended that Dad was advising and helping when I was making that ‘meccano’ bridge I was so proud of..  It might not have fallen down when the first toy tank drove across  it.
I could have relied on his advice when I was at big school, choosing options for GCE,  or looking for my first job.
But he was not there, I hadn’t thought to bring him into my life as a virtual father.
But that may be going too far.
He would then be playing the role of God - maybe that is why we so easily used to accept that God was  Abba, Father.   And why the church liked to refer to its Pope as the father and for priests to be addressed as ‘Father’.
They were taking the role of spiritual father.   Telling all the worshippers - the kids, what they should believe, what they should be doing and what they should not be doing.    They used to say that in the old days the priest had as much authority in the home as the real father did.
God as father too.    What a patriarchal spiritual world we all had to live in.   Yes, father was authority..   and I missed all of it.
In later years I have thought of my father on days such as this - I try to remember that he is my ancestor. - In a line of ancestors that has led to me.
I have come to believe that we should take time to remember our ancestors, man and woman,  - not just remember them, but honour them as part of our family.  
Honour their achievements, and honour their efforts to achieve, understand their weaknesses and forgive their failures - for our ancestors link us to a sacred thread of humanity.
Each generation carries that thread forward - we should think of it as a spiritual quest.
That sacred thread empowers us to go forwards.     And it frees us to be our own person.   We cannot live in the past, we cannot live for the past.   But the past has made us who we are.
To understand this we have to have a spiritual experience - maybe not a religious one - but definitely a spiritual one.
The connection has to be made on a spiritual level
Joseph Campbell writing in his book, ‘The hero has a thousand faces’ says that all the stories of old, the fables and the mythologies - especially the ones that contain battles and trials, trials with wild beats, trials with rivals, trials with mothers and trials with fathers, are all about the development of the spiritual hero.   The trials of life form the hero.    And the spiritual hero finds a freedom that unchains him or her from life - and  makes them strong and independent - but at the same time it puts them at one with the whole cosmos, with the whole of humanity.   
They see it all.   They are separate from it and yet they are also part of it; in a spiritual way, they are it.
We should seek to become spiritual heroes.
I like the idea of the spiritual thread that carries each generation forward.   It gives each one of us a purpose in life - a spiritual purpose.
Does this mean we need not worry whether there is a God or not?     I think we need to worry about how we see God.
If we see God as the traditional father, a threat to us if we do not eat our cabbage, a giver of punishments, a dictator who forbids us our freedom, then we have missed the truth of who God really is.
Our knowledge of God, the stories of our God,  are tales, fables and teachings that help us on our way to the spiritual path.   Maybe God is the first ancestor - but I think of him, if he is a he, as the energy that gives us strength to carry that thread along the way; that gives us the strength and confidence to carry it alone and is the sacred power that knows where all these sacred threads must lead.
We in our generation allow the next to continue with the task - but I am sure that it helps if they can look back and feel the love that urges them forward.
These are my thoughts on Father’s Day.