Forgiving Father

Father's Day Homily at All Saints Parish, San Leandro, California

Today, all around the country, we celebrate Fathers' Day. I'd call it a celebration of fatherhood, but that's too abstract. I think it means a lot more to celebrate Dad, Daddy, Pop, Papa -- or in the case of my dad, The Old Guy, The Major, or just "The Maje."

Some of you know that I had a pretty, well, complicated relationship with my father. A few years ago, I tried an experiment that really improved things. I took a moment to think about what my father had accomplished by the time he was my age.

I'm 45 now. When Ron Droste was 45, it was 1976. He had already been married 22 years -- he'd stay married to the same person until his death in 2002. He had already retired after a 20+ year career as an Air Force officer, was in the middle of a 15-year high school teaching profession and getting ready to start his own business. He was a Vietnam vet.

He had fathered five children, two of whom had died in infancy and are buried outside Travis AFB. His three surviving kids have three college degrees between them, two master's, a PhD in physics and one in a Doctor of Ministry program. He knew how to get things done, and he enjoyed showing others how.

Perhaps his best quality was his high concept of honor -- of what, exactly, was honorable, just and fair. It guided him. I'm really proud of my dad. I miss him. A lot, sometimes.

Now I don't want to get all Hallmark here, with fuzzy edges, like when they spray hairspray around the periphery of the camera lens to get that kind of misty, weepy quality. I'd rather be real. My father was a full human being, a man of real power in himself. That means he had flaws, and our interactions were colored by powerful, deep and often irrational emotions.

He could be unbelievably stubborn (now you know where I get it from), and had a hot temper, and a low threshold for inconvenience. He could be sarcastic and imperious, even contemptuous. He could hurt with a look -- not saying a word. These things didn't make Ron Droste bad. They made him complete.

Most of you know that my father and I had more than our share of conflict. It was sometimes savage. At one point, we were pretty much estranged for six or seven years. I moved all the way across country to get the distance I needed to sort things out -- and I've stayed out here ever since. But over the years three action steps helped to heal the relationship to the point where for the last 10 years of his life they were really pretty wonderful.

These are those three steps. First, I had to make an intentional effort to appreciate what my father had brought into my life. Second, I had to make amends where I had fallen short, and ask forgiveness. (This involved admitting that I wasn't always the perfect son, letting go of the childish self-justification that made everything his fault.) Then I had to accept and forgive where he had fallen short, disappointing or infuriating me. (Please note I didn't say approving or condoning, just cultivating acceptance). Only in doing these things could I come to peace in my relationship with my dad.

It doesn't take much to see our relationship to God mirrored in our relationship to our dad. It's well known that on a very deep level, the kind of God we choose to believe in tends to take on the characteristics of the father we have (or had). Our relationship with that God, or Higher Power, mirrors that relationship with our human father.

This leads to pretty predictable outcomes. We deeply want our fathers' love and approval -- so we naturally want our Father's approval, too. We hold our fathers up to intense scrutiny and expectation -- and so, do we, to our Father. We rebel against authority at the same time we need healthy structure and boundaries -- and we relate to the Father in the same way.

In his book The Death of the Church, Mike Regele notes that in times where authority and institutions are built -- like the 40s and 50s, God "the Father" made sense. It was comforting. People believed in the benevolent authority of a Robert Young, for instance. In periods of great mistrust, on the other hand, like the 60s and the present, we chafe under Father language and try our best to ignore or replace it. Who, after all, would want a God like the Donald Sutherland character in Ordinary People or Archie Bunker? We resist the concept. Yet we can't escape it.

We can use some of the same techniques for coming to peace with our relationship to a "Father God" as we can to our human fathers. An intentional, ongoing practice of gratitude can go a long way to help. Looking at our own faults clearly and compassionately, and asking forgiveness. And the third -- we can accept and forgive God where we believe God has let us down.

You're probably saying to yourself, "Wait a minute. Forgive God? Who am I to do that?" Forgiving God is almost as difficult as, well, forgiving our dads. It implies that God can somehow make mistakes, that we can somehow judge God. I'm suggesting that not only can we do so -- but that it can help us get much closer to God than we are right now. That it can help us deepen our relationship to God, as Father.

In railing against God and holding God accountable, we have good company. Daniel Migliore, of Princeton Theological Seminary, once wrote of this in his wonderful book Faith Seeking Understanding. In it, we learn of an approach from no less a theologian than Elie Wiesel -- who says that the Jewish people have every right to call God, their Father, to accountability for the Holocaust. This comes as a result of being of one another in special, familial relationship. And think of Job, righteous old Job, sitting on the garbage heap demanding that God account for himself. In both cases, they own one another. They belong to one another.

For us, forgiving God is part of that kind of deep relationship. It's about us finally exhausting ourselves with resentment and anger toward God the Father, and saying "I just want to be free. I forgive. I love feeling forgiven by you. I know judging you is about my limitations, but it's the best I've got. I forgive you, too."

In the movie Smoke Signals, a remarkable film based on Sherman Alexie's remarkable book, the main character, a young Indian man, searches for his father. At the end, over a beautiful montage of shots of a flowing mountain river, the narrator asks a series of questions. I don't have them verbatim here, but the sense of it is this.

Can we forgive our fathers for being who they are? Can we forgive them for being too involved in our lives or not involved enough? Can we forgive them for working too hard or being lazy? For burning with rage or freezing with contempt? Can we forgive them for being too strong or too weak? For being around too much or never there?

Of course we can. Or at least we can work toward it. We love our dads, and we love that part of God, or Higher Power that we would consider Father. In allowing ourselves to forgive them both, we open up a broad channel, a real relationship. A relationship of power.