Fathers' Day 2020: New Frames

Like many people living though COVID 19 times, I used the stay-at-home days to tackle long neglected home projects. Piles of paperwork were filed, new batteries were put in the fire detectors whether they needed them or not, and each bicycle is now is operational form. Recently, I’ve turned my attention to the many photographs displayed throughout our home and my studio. Some needed to be replaced with more current photos, but others just needed to be reframed. I always marvel at how much better a picture can look if it’s put in a suitable frame. 

I suppose that work prepared me for today, Fathers’ Day. I know it’s a wonderful celebration for many, but there are those for whom this is not an easy day. “It’s complicated,” said a friend when he spoke of Fathers’ Day, and I couldn’t agree more. Searching for father songs for my Spotify Fathers’ Day playlist, has shown me what a common struggle today can be. 

My father died when I was a freshman in college. I adored him. In fact, I’d say I idolized him. A kind and loving man with a wonderful sense of humor. A consummate performer, he was brilliant and enormously creative. He was a man of faith and lived out that faith in word as well as deed. The problem is, when someone like that dies so early in life, their reputation becomes legendary, their shadow all-encompassing.

Then there’s the whole being a father thing. Like New Year’s Eve, when people put on silly hats and drink too much all in the name of forcing a good time, Father’s Day can feel a bit orchestrated. Like midnight on January 1, we wait for the band to play only to see all the ways we haven’t been the fathers we hoped to be. 

This year I’m going to fight such morose thoughts and let the day be what it is. I’m going to accept my fatherhood for what it is and give thanks for the father I had. I’m going to look at Fathers’ Day anew, giving thanks for the many blessings rather than bemoaning the many shortcomings. In other words, I’m going to take all my old thoughts and images out of their frames and move them into new ones.

Just a Draft

It’s just a draft. It’s finished, but not completed. Someone once said of art that a piece is never done, it just ends at an interesting moment. Looking at the draft, I see a piece that’s reached an interesting moment, but there’s so much more to do.

The draft has a beginning, middle and end. It has characters, a plot, and many themes. I should celebrate all of that, but there’s more to the characters than what I’ve written, the plot has more twists and turns than I understand, and I think I know what the story is about, but themes keep showing up and demanding my attention.

I guess this draft has more to teach me than just how to write. Like it, I have a life story that I think I understand. It’s one with twists and turns that leave me questioning my life’s purpose and whether it has a theme at all. There are specific moments in my story when I can look back and see myself as if a character in a novel, but, like those in the draft, I realize there’s more to each of those characters than I’ll ever fully understand - there’s the boy driving away from the hospital with all his father’s possessions in a tied-up garbage bag who wonders how to be a man, the young man who has his son on his lap and no idea what it means to be a father, and the boy putting on a plastic collar in the mirror before his ordination shaking his head in disbelief, and the successful chaplain tripping over his academic robes in England wondering if he’ll ever find his home, to name a few of my characters. You, I’m sure, have many characters of your own. 

Doing the work is not easy. Whether creating a novel or a life, it’s a continuous effort that never ends. It requires showing up, or getting your ass in the chair, as one writer colorfully describes it. We also need a willingness to go where the story and characters lead. There will be interesting moments that allow us to pause , but then there will be more work to do. We’re all works-in-progress, and that can be as frustrating as it can be comforting. 

As I crawl from my therapist’s office, I can at least take comfort in one thing: I’m just a draft. We all are.

Not Much of a Carpenter

I awakened with the giddiness of a child on his first day of summer vacation. Filled with memories of playing in my brother’s workshop when I was young, I went to the hardware store to purchase all I would need to construct a trash container at our mountain house. Over coffee, I made my plans and figured out what I needed and the order in which things should be done. Now, I just needed to pull it off. That fact is, I’m not much of a carpenter, but that’s not the point.

I set up a workstation on the deck and stumbled my way through cutting the supports. After correcting some measurements, I attached the supports, then put on the siding. Building things is harder than I remembered, and I marveled at my friends who are accomplished carpenters throughout the project. By the time I got to the lid, I was eager to finish the project and rushed through the final stages. In the end, I pulled it off. Anyone who looks closely could see countless mistakes. As I put away my tools, it was clear I wasn’t much of a carpenter, but that’s not the point.

My experience building the container is not unlike my efforts to live a life of faith. I awaken every morning with high hopes and spend time “getting ready” before beginning my day. I make plans, but either the day itself or my scattered heart usually gets in the way. Mistakes are made and I need to correct them, it seems, by the minute. Determined, I push on. Some days I make it through because of sheer stubbornness.  Some days take less effort. Whether a day feels like a disaster and isn’t so bad, I’m can always see I’m not much of a carpenter, but that’s not the point. 

I can get lost in comparing my work to those who are accomplished, those who seem to be able to live a spiritual life effortlessly, but that never helps. I can look closely and only see my mistakes, but that will just make me want to give up. Instead, I need to see that I showed up, cared enough to try. Even though I’m not be much of a carpenter, that’s the point.