About fathers, Mark Twain wrote: "When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years." As a son, and as a stepfather, Mark Twain's words bring me a bittersweet smile.

Perhaps because religion has taught us that God is our Father, our expectations of what it means to be a father have become difficult or impossible to achieve. If Jesus really said "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48), is there any human who can be everything a father needs to be?

Until I was about six years old, my father was very nearly God in my eyes. He was the strongest, the smartest, and the one I ran to when I wanted an important question answered or when I was afraid. As I grew older, though, I began to notice more and more of my father's imperfections. By the time I was 14, my estimate of my father pretty much matched Mark Twain's.

I wish I could say that by the time I reached 21, “I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years," I wasn't. Instead, I was appalled at how my father's life seemed to be falling apart, at how his disintegration was making life difficult for me, for my mother, and for my brothers and sisters. Three years later, my father took his life.

Forgiveness and Compassion
People tend to live up—or down—to our expectations of them. Although we know better, we continue to "judge by appearances." It may be that your father fulfilled or is fulfilling all of your expectations of what a father should be. I hope that's true.

If it's not, then I encourage you to take a healing step, to forgive your father. In Steps in Self-Knowledge, a Unity book now out of print, author and Unity minister Leddy Schmellig (now Hammock) reminds us "To forgive another is simply to accept him as he is, though not necessarily as he appears to be."

As I write these words, I feel a great love and compassion for my father. Forty years of life experience with its joys, sorrows, successes and failures should inspire compassion for our fathers and for everyone we may have judged harshly, shouldn't it?

Along with the compassion I feel for my father, I feel a deep desire to know more of him as he really is. I would be thrilled to be able to say to my father, as citizens of the fictional planet Pandora in the recent film Avatar said to those with whom they shared the deepest connection, “I see you." 

I believe that, when we really see another human being, we're seeing the Christ expressing. The one we're seeing may have no conception of him/herself as the Christ.  That doesn't really matter. We who have studied the teachings of Charles and Myrtle Fillmore, Emilie Cady, Eric Butterworth, and so many other fathers and mothers of our Unity movement, can give our fathers—and everyone else—the gift of knowing the Truth about them. We can say to our fathers, as Peter is quoted as saying to Jesus, "You are the Christ, the son of the living God." (Matthew 16:16 NASB)  

Celebrating the Christ Within
I pray that we all enjoy the true blessing of a happy Father's Day, no matter what our relationship with our fathers may have been, regardless of whether they're still with us in this world or have moved on to another dimension of consciousness. We can know the Truth of Christhood, of being a Divine Being, literally God in expression, for our fathers—for anyone, really—until the time comes when they can know it for themselves. As we know this Truth for others, we strengthen our own awareness of ourselves as the Christ. All that's required is our willingness to accept our fathers, and each other, as we really are. 

 

Read "Seven Lessons to Becoming a Better Father."


Read a wonderful Father's Day tribute from Daily Word® magazine.