Fatherhood: Learning to Be a Good Son

Being a good father requires first learning to be a good son. One learns to be a good son through the primary means of learning: discipline. Before trying to discipline, either great or small, one must have the integrity needed to endure discipline: to admit when one is wrong and make amends and to, when one's convictions are solid and true, never waiver from them. Deviation from the principles so clearly and deeply held turns what was once a monument to discipline and healthy relation into a mausoleum of the dead, dry bones of a righteous man turned hypocrite. The principles held so closely then become an alabaster box that no one dares to open, lest the skeleton comes tumbling out in macabre fashion.

It is never too late, if one still has breath to speak, to turn back and ask for forgiveness. Likewise, it is never too late to forgive for past injustices. Our hearts are restless until, in Him, we see both so very clearly and experience both concurrently.

The Luminosity of the Higher Things

When one orders one's life in the brilliancy of the higher things, the more luminous things, an interesting thing occurs. Things that once happened in retrograde become ones that move in a more natural course, in a way that gives meaning and governs the movements of everything else in such a profound, moving way.

If one begins the day with such an ordering with our humanity keyed to this central need for belief and to place it upon the bedrock of a Faith not untested but one put through fire and tested, not of clever myths or elaborate ruses, then we see open wide the vistas the same Faith provides: the quiet assurances when even the darkness returns or the bright lights become but a twinkle of the Promise to come. If we but remember it doesn't revolve around us but we to Him, then we are able to see how even the smallest occurrence in the Cosmos has meaning, value, and deep need for redemption in every sense. We cannot do it ourselves, as though we as mere planetary bodies could move the dangers of comets or asteroids in the path of another or fully change the irregular orbits of others not fully seeing His love. However, we must trust from that initial explosion of matter from nothing until we have our time end here and do our part in the order He has given to make the changes in the time He gives us.

If we like planetary bodies realize that the Sun does not revolve around us but us to it, so must we in everything we do. There is Someone always greater than I. Or even to our secondary loves, to our moons in orbit 'round us who also move in concert with us and often born of collisions, if we but recall that they but reflect the light of Him Who Is, who came before us... Even this will give the one who has this beautiful truth greater understanding to work towards the order He has given before our time began.

We are so lost often times in the Secondary Loves... that not until they eclipse with the One True Love do we realize our error. Not until even the Secondary Loves be understood and placed in their proper order and timing does the love of Him begin to make sense to our often aimless understanding.

Yet, with the beauty of all of this, those who put forth this valid and true notion, who give their lives in service to it, can and should be heard. "If we have ears, we ought to hear..."

I am in still in wonder, because of this understanding, why those who see this all but still see Shadows everywhere when it is nothing but the dawn of a New Day where the Sun scatters its dazzling light wherever He wills. I still wonder even more with those in the Church who do not understand Her teachings in a similar way or rejected the ability of the Church to speak of Marriage (its structure, content, or telos—aim)... Have we not been down this path before? ...Or those who have left over some reason or another, whether by birth or choice away from the unitive Banner of Christ. I do not understand it like I would if someone doubted the Sun rising again tomorrow.

Let us believe these things, out of love for Him and for one another. Lead, O Kindly Light...

"Your friends make known, O Lord,
the glorious splendor of your Kingdom.

Let all your works give you thanks, O Lord,
and let your faithful ones bless you.
Let them discourse of the glory of your Kingdom
and speak of your might.

Making known to men your might
and the glorious splendor of your Kingdom.
Your Kingdom is a Kingdom for all ages,
and your dominion endures through all generations." - Psalm 145

Fullfillment in God's Love

The one thing I have found in spite of all the personal misgivings I may have at any particular lucid moment (those nagging moments of irrational or seemingly insurmountable worry) or the detractions of others against their better selves whether due to their own outlook or loss from another, in spite of all of this, it is so easy to fall into love.

...Fall... in a sense, from the seized moments of clenched hearts and clenched fists. The encompassing willpower to do then what is right and just and necessary. That is often what we have lost, even those familiar with faith and trust.

...in love... because love isn't an absence of reality but the fulfillment of it. "Fulfillment" because "God is love" (cf. 1 John 4:8) and we are not there yet; our hunger remains...

Yet, our hunger does not exist in a vacuum or in a myth. Neither does our faith or our hope... It is and it should always be rightly directed, honed, and poured into the chief telos of our hearts: Communion.

Communion in and with what... or, rather, whom? Communion with Him. However, Communion with Him does not limit communion with others; rather, it extends and exalts it. It purifies every other love one has and transfigures it to the reality of it outside of time and space. He does all of this out of His very own love for us.

We are to love "because He first loved us" (cf. 1 John 4:19). To do so is to love Him with everything we have and love each other as our very selves.

So, although it is "very good that we are here," (cf. Luke 9:33) this mountaintop is not a place we can stop. It is a momentary stop on the journey we each take and we must each choose, as we are called to love and to be love for one another.

Let us not be dissuaded from the truth of love.

"We did not follow cleverly devised myths
when we made known to you
the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,
but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty.
For he received honor and glory from God the Father
when that unique declaration came to him from the majestic glory,
“This is my Son, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven
while we were with him on the holy mountain.
Moreover, we possess the prophetic message that is altogether reliable.
You will do well to be attentive to it,
as to a lamp shining in a dark place,
until day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts." - 2 Peter 1:16-19