Everyone is a father….

Last Sunday at Unity Center, we celebrated Father’s Day. Peeling back the typical associations we have with the word “father” — maleness and parenting and age-difference and such — we acknowledge joyfully that each and everyone of us shares the traits associated with fatherhood: love, strength, wisdom, protection, and comfort. And we share these traits (call them gifts) with so many others in our lives.

Here is the outline form of what we discussed. A story accompanies each point. To hear the stories, listen to the podcast at the Unity Center Austin website.

LOVE from the father/parent is unconditional and being so love lets love offer guidance. The guidance helps us  recognize conditions that we experience, encounter, and may even have to overcome. Love as father allows us to guide others (and ourselves) to joy and peace.

STRENGTH may be what we most count on. Being fatherly means being strong. And being strong means staying true to who we are, staying true to what we mean — not in what we say but in what our true meaning is. And from that strength comes gentleness, our ability to accept and enjoy the truth of meaning in one another.

WISDOM comes from our experience – what has worked for us and what we’ve learned. And along with wisdome comes our honesty. Not everything we do works and when we ‘fess up to that, we demonstrate even greater wisdom. It is true that everything that happens to us is good for us or teaches us a lesson. Or it does both.
Bill Chaffin

PROTECTION we provide to others in so many ways. The other may be our child, partner, friend, acquaintance, brother, sister…… The nature of the protection evolves from walking in front to walking beside to walking. And protection turns to independence, and we let the other walk alone. (Although we know that no one walks alone!)

COMFORT we provide from the role we enjoy by sharing one’s burden and easing their pain. And as the comfort is enjoyed, we engage in rigor as both of us learn the joy of bearing the load, achieving the end, knowing success.

If you’d like to hear the lesson (and the meditation), click here.

I hope your Father’s Day was joyfilled!

Posted on June 19, 2012 at 10:27 pm by Tim · Permalink
In: Happiness, Love · Tagged with: , ,