FRIDAY’S THOUGHTS
As we celebrate Father’s Day, we lift up our memories of our fathers. If we are lucky enough to have him still with us, we can share those memories with him. If he has already gone on to heaven, we can share those memories with someone else, or we can hold them forever in our hearts.
A few years ago, when my mother died, someone gave me an article entitled: “The death of a parent alters our souls.” In it, the author wrote, “There is a special light that may come in the wake of our parents’ leaving. I discovered, as you will too, that in a deeper sense, our parents don’t leave us. They become part of us.” They live on through or memories of them.
Jack Shea, theologian, says that we have to, have to, have to remember. Memory is a real powerful religious reality. In the Bible, people are reminded often to remember. The Israelites are told to remember their slavery, so that they could help others who are enslaved. When you forget, when you don’t remember the dynamics of the past, you are bound to each moment without power. As we remember, we reinterpret life, and we begin a process where we praise what we have been given, and we judge what we want to carry on. The remembering gives us power to live the present a little better, and to move on to the future.
Father’s Day is for remembering the good and the not so perfect times. Remembering is being thankful and learning from the past. By remembering, we honor the past and those who have gone before us.
