Monday Morning Music Ministry

6-20-22

Recently, here, on that other Hallmark Holiday (Mothers Day) I presented a view of motherhood that I fear is being lost in the shuffle of modern culture. To our cultural and physical DNAs, the role of mothers and the bonds between – let me be Politically Correct – between “Birthing Units” and their Tax Deductions are immutable.

I argued against the tugs of the Post-Modern lunacy that reigns today. The radical elements of the French Revolution actually tried to change clocks and calendars, not only religions and governments. Today’s revolutionaries attempt similar social atrocities. They are in our midst, not, as in “the best of times, the worst of times,” in barricades and city squares on the other side of Paris. They already run our government, the media, the entertainment industry, the education-industrial complex, and thanks to our electronic hypnotists called the internet, our minds.

… or nearly so, which is why we need yet another Great Awakening.

Before commencing a counter-revolution, and essential to it, is a basic rediscovery of our Christian heritage, and from a secular perspective at least, a commitment to its core values and disciplines. “To go forward we must first look back,” a Classical Italian thinker wrote. We are lost enough as a people without furthering the self-swindling lies that we can, and should, discard old values and discover – or invent – new ones.

I am not talking about… excuse me: I am not only talking about the Athenian Republic; nor Roman laws; nor the “Germ Theory” of self-governance that arose in Germanic forests; nor the Magna Carta; nor the Renaissance of art and thought in Florence; nor the mercantile and capitalist systems that arose in Augsburg; nor the Reformation explosion of literacy; nor the Enlightenment and Great Awakenings that inspired bourgeois revolutions and prosperity…

As magnificent as this March of Civilization has been, it seems incredible that a persuasive portion of our contemporary establishment despises its thrust. Liberal secularists seek to overthrow the basic premises of Christian society (not only to distort Christianity itself). As with most revolutions and revolutionaries, the proponents know what they hate; are dedicated to destroying institutions; and, typically, have an inchoate idea of what will constitute their brave new world.

So their imperative is to… CANCEL. Cancel what they can, tear down indiscriminately.

At the moment, in much of the world, especially Europe and America, they are quite successful. Are they clever, or are Christians, traditionalists, patriots lazy and defeated in spirit?

I began these thoughts by revisiting my Mothers Day message, and for a reason. On this Fathers Day. There is little that is more elemental to our essential selves than parenthood. The ties with our mothers and fathers. And for those so blessed, with children of the next generation. I tried to express my ineffable amazement of motherhood, the psychic (and all other) forces that exist, fierce, tender, and everything in between. That truth is what should make us despise and defeat those disordered social malefactors among us who want to destroy families, “change” sexes, and play God in uncountable ways.

But this is Dads’ Day. I did not, of course, disparage fatherhood by pausing to savor the role of mothers. But how unique is the inheritance fathers can bestow – literally, a patrimony. How special are the roles and duties God ordained: leading, providing, instructing. God Almighty has self-identified in Scripture as a He (which I am willing to concede is likely a construct of language’s limitations more than a description He must transcend as He does all matters of understanding) – which ultimately means that we are to look to His qualities with His children to form our relationships with our children.

So as a “point of personal privilege,” I am going to spill some attitudes of the best human father I knew, and share my appreciation and what I learned from his examples.

His own father was born in Germany (as were all my forebears) and was a gentle old man, yet I saw the razor strop in the closet by which he enforced discipline.

My father loved jazz as a boy, and his father let him listen and play (he was to perform with ensembles) but Sunday was the day restricted to hymns and… opera. My father developed a passion for Classic music too; as I did – through his example and the ubiquity of the music in our house, But never forced.

My father was a polymath, member of Mensa, interested in myriad things. I would not have become an obsessive collector, I think, without his example. On Saturdays he would bring me to Book Store Row in Manhattan, those ghettos of used-book stores. I caught the bug!

Dad never wrote, but when I became a journalist and author (now almost 80 books) I never have finished a piece without wondering what he would think or say.

He never drew, but he collected cartoon books and subscribed to a dozen papers so he could read – and save – the color comics. He charted my course without intending it, as cartoon work became a vocation.

He was a chemist, but never urged that profession on me (to the world’s relief, believe me). We used to argue politics until my mother cried – but it was never substantive: Mom never understood how we always flipped a switch to chat about Jack Benny or the latest best-seller. He taught me disputation, and to defend my ideas. And have them. (He became a conservative…)

He was a dedicated churchgoer, a Lutheran. Our family prayed daily and attended church weekly, but like many ‘50s families my parents smoke and drank and partied in suburbia. When I was to leave for college I told Dad my faith was getting shaky, and I wouldn’t want him to think that college would be changing my mind. “Oh, it’s just a stage,” he said. “You’ll stick with Jesus.”

At the time I thought he was a lazy Christian or indifferent about my soul! But I knew it was his brand of confidence-building. I soon did appreciate the quiet endorsement, his style.

I could go on, but most of you did not know him; maybe do, a little bit, now. I rolled out these snippets for a reason beyond nostalgia. I hope you all have similar stories, similar touchstones, and can identify through memories of your own.

There are two things to do with the collective memories we have of our fathers. We realize that we cherish not only their faces or personalities, their jobs or hobbies, even their successes or shortcomings. Those aspects combine to make one single, and singular, person. Especially if it is too late to say it to them, we must cherish our fathers.

But more, we must cherish the motive force behind fatherhood – and that is an aspect ordained by God. The continuum of family lines… our spiritual inheritance… responsibilities and joys…

With our fathers (and of course as I have said, mothers in different and special ways) we are not mere individuals thrown together by accident. And a family is not a club; a house is not a home. God has ordained the family unit, and as He is our Heavenly Father, must look to – and be – examples of the special nurturing only fathers can provide,

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The gifted songwriter Steve Goodman wrote this emotional tribute to his father. Don’t skip it!

Click: My Old Man