Our Father

This Father’s Day weekend (celebrated in over 50 countries!), I find myself thinking about all the fathers in the world and what unites them, regardless of nationality or culture.

With the incessant news today about the horrors of wars and tragedies at home and around the globe, it seems to me even more important — actually compelling! — that I pray to understand that all humanity from a spiritual perspective is truly embraced and cherished in the family of man by the Father and Mother of us all, divine Love.

So from this perspective, what binds all fathers — and mothers and children and families — are the inherent qualities shared and expressed. These are soul-filled qualities, originating from the Divine and never lost, taken away, or destroyed. Never. No matter what the human condition might present. 

As I watch the news and hear the stories of fathers talking about their children in the midst of suffering I see courageous honesty and principle, enduring and unrelenting love, rock-solid trust and patience, and the strong arms of comfort and compassion — from them and around them.

This may be a challenge, to strive to see and proclaim the inherent good right in the face of tragedies, but if one has decided to be a ‘helper-healer’ for a community and a world, I think this is the demand of our time. The premise, without question, is that all children of the Divine are loved…and loving.

Support for the helper-healer’s prayerful work can be found in the Bible, beginning with two words — two — that are so powerful, so comforting, they have healed humanity for two millennia:

“Our Father…”

So begins this prayer from Christ Jesus to his followers for all time, a prayer that describes and affirms the universal, impartial, and unconditional love of God for all His children. Whatever individual hurt or pain one may experience, the prayer that heals demands that one include, right from the start, all humanity in the affirmation of unchanging healing love! 

Christ Jesus also offers a parable describing this kind of unconditional love in the story of The Prodigal Son. In a recent post I talked about the lessons from the son’s perspective. What is also powerful and deeply meaningful is to view the parable from the father’s perspective. In fact, this story is often called “The Parable of the Loving Father.” 

While the son wanders far from home and loses everything he thinks is of value, the father remains at home base, steadfast, patient, loving, trusting, no matter what. When the son returns, hoping for a place to work and just be in the vicinity of his former home of comfort, his father — Our Father! — runs to embrace his precious son and restores him to a place of honor in his never ever lost home. This is immediate — there is no delay, no trial period or doubt, no judgment, no blame. Only forgiving, healing love.

This is such an important lesson from the father for each of us. When the older son could not understand how the father could ignore all the mistakes of the younger son, the father turns to him with the same unconditional, steadfast, patient, enduring love:

“…Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine.”

What grace, what assurance, what abundance from the father! This promise and blessing is for the entire family of man from our Father.

May you all have a happy and blessed Father’s Day!