Under the snow, stuff from last year’s garden remains that will have to be cleared away so Spring will have the blank space it needs to operate.

In the brain, it’s all four seasons of the year every day as certain patches lay fallow, others flourish, others are in full bloom, and others decline. Not everything is going to be fully underway all the time. If one feels like writing, he can do that instead of focusing on music for awhile, or maybe one feels like drawing (finally inventing a good graffiti tag, for instance) instead of anything else.

Several types of prayer are common, and familiar: classics (Our Father), less familiar (Memorare), obscure ones found in old prayer books, individual formulas one creates by linking Scriptural texts, private prayer (Rosary), common prayers said in unison at Mass, lectio divina, spontaneous prayer, petitions, thanksgiving.

It can all add up. During Mass, petitions are offered, with reference sometimes made to the prayer concerns of the congregation. When one starts naming names and praying for certain situations, it can be hard to know where to stop. Think of all those people at work, their difficulties and problems. A word might be said about those things, and if one doesn’t, is it because he has the shortcoming of not caring enough about that person’s thing, or thinks it’s not a big enough problem? If one prays for peace and justice in Nigeria, how can one leave out the Congo? And that’s just for starters. At what point do you think you’ve singled out every specific issue big enough, or just lump them all together into one region of the world? If one has prayed for a place every day for years, as have so many people in the place itself, and everywhere else, with no signs of things ever getting any better, at what point does one think he’s done enough? And, what has he actually done, and how is it that that much of whatever one has done is enough?

Just because one prays those petitions doesn’t mean one is doing that with the intention of drawing God’s attention to something, or is attempting to persuade God to take action. The formula of the prayer is automatic and the mind is complex enough to appreciate that one doesn’t exactly mean it like that, nor does he think God thinks he does. A prayer is answered if it successfully predisposes the person to a deeper engagement with the issue of concern. If one prays for the hungry every day, it becomes harder to neglect opportunities to provide practical assistance in service of that cause. There’s the answered prayer.

Petitions are a means of awakening one’s conscience. But they can also be a 15-minute daily recitation of a long list of things. It’s hard to remember them all, and it’s difficult to say while one is busy with the other chores of the day, and they’re stressful to say when one is rushing through them to get to the rest of one’s daily prayers, which include other questionable exercises which are also difficult to recite efficiently, which he likes to say before some other prayers. All told, including the prayer books in the morning, all this can last five hours on an easy day, eight hours on a difficult day.

The whole program began small, but has gotten bigger, and massive, over the years. Many of the exercises began when he had a much different life. He had much time on his hands. Now, he has no such time, partially because so much of the day is spent on the same activities one has maintained for decades.

For what purpose? The idea with prayer is that it’s a constructive activity that deepens one’s spiritual life, and helps him be a better person. But habits are imbued with an inertia, and become difficult to dislodge. It can be easier to stick to habit than to question the habit, and investigate whether that has been time well-spent. Is it really necessary to spend 15 minutes reciting petitions when one is pretty sure there is no need or benefit there? Must one reject altogether that entire form of prayer? One can always pray for somebody or something with honesty and sincerity, and that is enough.

Some people might have the problem that they don’t pray enough. Others have the problem that they don’t sleep enough.

Who has the problem that they’re not good enough? When one grows up with the story that all those people are the goats, and they’re destined for the everlasting torment created for Satan and his angels, and others are destined for the eternal banquet on the mountain with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, it ‘s hard to shake the idea that some people, maybe a lot, are just rotten. Maybe some of us! Because all those people in the story are going to Hell, and it’s so scary that someone can spend several hours a day his whole life saying all kinds of prayers for anybody and everybody.

But if it’s being a better person that someone is after, a good way of getting there could well be not getting up so early to say so many more prayers , and instead try to get enough sleep so one has the energy and focus to make good, well-considered decisions.

All the prayers you can say won’t make you a good enough person, and if you are a good enough person, you won’t be downgraded because you don’t fulfill a quota of prayer. None of us can say he hasn’t deserved some punishment at one time or other, and no one can say he is no good at all.

How does one really become a better person in his family, his work, his neighborhood, his life? When too much looking inward causes a skewed perspective outward, it’s time to look outward more thoughtfully, and see what one can do in one’s inner life to restore a better balance.

Although the mental landscape is covered with things: things that have been there too long, things that need to be moved into the compost pile, triumphs, partial successes, and some experiments in progress, it remains one’s private place where, if one looks, one continually finds opportunities to try new, and better, things.

Lord, have mercy on us.

Christ, have mercy on us.

Lord, have mercy on us.

Christ, hear us.

Christ, graciously hear us.

God the Father of Heaven, have mercy on us.

God the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us.

Holy Spirit, our Sanctifier, have mercy on us.

Holy Trinity, One God, have mercy on us.

Mary, our mother, pray for us.

St. Joseph, father of football players, pray for us.

Pete Gross, pray for us.

Chuck Knox, pray for us.

Cortez Kennedy, pray for us.

Dave Krieg, pray for us.

Sea Gals, pray for us.

Efren Herrera, pray for us.

Howard Cosell, pray for us.

Nordstroms, pray for us.

Jimi Hendrix, pray for us.

Fredericks and Nelsons, pray for us.

Steve Largent, pray for us.

Vince Lombardi, pray for us.

Franco Harris, pray for us.

Brian Bosworth, pray for us.

Jack Patera, pray for us.

Dan Doornink, pray for us.

Kenny Easley, pray for us.

Jacob Green, pray for us.

Dave Brown, have mercy on us.

Walter Jones, have mercy on us.

Jim Zorn, have mercy on us.

Tom Flores, pray for us.

Mike Holmgren pray for us.

Matt Hasselback, pray for us.

Dan Fouts, pray for us.

Officiating crew, have mercy on us.

Halftime show producers, graciously have mercy on us.

First down, Seahawks!

Fumble recovery, Seahawks!

Interception, Seahawks!

Touchdown, Seahawks!

We repent that we destroyed the Kingdome, and pledge to maintain the open roof of the Clink.

We resolve to have a balanced attack of four yards and a cloud of dust, coupled with fast receivers with good hands and quarterbacks who can throw long, with a defense that controls the trenches, stifles the run, thwarts the passing game, forces turnovers, and keeps the opposing offense off the field.

NFC Western Division Champions, Seahawks.

NFC Champions, Seahawks.

Super Bowl Champions, Seahawks!

Hut-one! Hut-two!

12th Man, Boss.

Amen!

The Bible is full of near-to-impossible suggestions, if not demands, none more daunting than the not judging of others. Worse still, being warned to expect the same judgment on ourselves that we apply to others.

What exactly is meant by the judgment of others? It seems near-to-impossible to seriously judge someone, inasmuch as one is cognizant of one’s non-possession of one’s own authentic, valid, omniscient narrator for the lives of others.

The intentionality behind another person’s actions, except on rare and special occasions, is not transparent and available for the discernment of the person who, nonetheless, dissects the motives and intentions behind someone’s actions.

“I know what he’s doing. I know what he’s thinking. I know why he did that!”

If you don’t have that response to another person, you can’t live in this world. We have standards and codes of behavior, and we have the countless exceptions and variations on every single one of them a thousand times every single day.

We like some people because we appreciate how they behave, how they interact with others. Other people seem far afield from any compatibility. Shrug– the world takes all kinds.

My own behavior is certainly not to the liking of every person under all circumstances. Sometimes, someone expects an attitude on my part that I do not have, and, furthermore, would never want to possess.

There are misunderstandings. I will judge a person who I think behaves in an unkind and dastardly fashion at my expense.

Qoheleth says, “All is vanity.”

I take offense, because I know I’ve been ill-done by, or someone else has been ill-done by. Why would someone do such a thing?

That pre-supposes that one knows what that person intended to do. That pre-supposes that one knows why that person intended to ill-do that person. It’s an initial reaction and outburst that seems as self-explanatory as the ill deed.

Fair to say that if he ill-done by vows revenge, that exemplifies the classic, negative judgment. 

Simply to say, and believe, you really don’t know why something happened, but you’re not sure the person can be blamed, because he simply doesn’t know why something happened, is an acquittal– also a judgment.

When I don’t know why I myself sometimes do things I wouldn’t want to repeat, and can’t explain, and harm other people, I try to apply that ignorance to my own self in a way that realistically acknowledges my limits and imperfections, and doesn’t suggest that it’s my own fault that I sometimes fall short at ideally performing every thing in life.

To be proven wrong can be a shocking thing, but it doesn’t happen as often as it could. One makes unspoken assumptions about anything and everything, and nothing comes that isn’t well within the range of known possibilities, so one thinks one has a good idea what’s happening. Because we are not proven wrong, we assume we are right. That is probably not true a lot more than we will ever know.

With wrong-doing comes the opportunity for redemption.

The road to redemption can be off-puttingly humbling. One sometimes must cast one’s self down and acknowledge a shortcoming to someone who has shown no inclination to ever do likewise (my assumption, probably so wrong that I hopefully would never say that out loud about anyone, as strongly as I thought it). One does this, not for that person, not for one’s standing in the community, but for one’s own self, because it takes an adult to behave like an adult. One realizes the gravity of the Scriptures about the need for humility, and peace-making, and realizes, sometimes, one must be the one to pay the most expensive personal cost to fulfill that ideal.

Who hasn’t had enemies? How often have the great ones of history been brought down by someone of seemingly comparitively zero import? But we remember how the prophets, the martyrs, the great ones, persevered and remained faithful to the highest ideals under extreme distress and duress. That’s how we would like to be remembered. But to take that chance, and make that choice, when it comes, in the dark privacy of obscurity, is the man-sized task of faith. When it all plays out in ignorance and doubts, one has the consolation that one has subjugated his darker instincts and submitted his conscience to the guide of the Scriptures, in weather both fair, and foul.

If I suffer the consequences now of having acted poorly because of my own shortcomings, perhaps that will reflect well on me, when my final judgment comes. If I have accused another and justified myself, where will I stand when I am judged for the accusations against me? I don’t even know what the accusations will be, what they are, but I have to assume they might be really, really bad, and far worse than I’ll expect.

“How about,” the court decided, “you go back to Earth and redo that situation?”

It seems easy to say, “Instead of pushing that person down the stairs, I will accuse myself of having been the wronghead in that one, and apologize.”

A hard paradox is that, never is it harder to be the taller man than when one’s foe seems to be about a moral inch tall. Vanity is always an inch taller, and never wants to be the inch smaller. Hopefully, one’s best conscience will, ultimately, be more enlightened, and more persuasive.

As a powerful source of unity among fellows, the weather is a powerful force.

A young Republican banker, the first banker in her family, Evangelical Christian, meets an aged Democratic labor activist, first of his family to attend college. His spirituality consists of weekly yoga class and a fondness for all things Tibetan. They share a picnic table with a Moslem family of three from Delhi.

This mild, sunny Spring day, they find themselves together having fish ‘n’ chips on Fisherman’s Wharf.

“Nice day!”

“Oh yes, very nice!”

Smiles all around. Everyone has interacted amicably and can retreat to their private selves, comforted to be among like-minded companions.

Maybe one of them glumly reflects, “Where is the fog?”

But to express a distaste for weather most people like, proclaim a taste for weather most people dislike, would take a leap into confrontation that would accomplish nothing but to establish one’s self as the pariah, the odd one out. The sad case– by the Sun, driven into a dark room, shades drawn.

Youngsters prefer Spring. The fully-bloomed embrace Summer. Romantics cling to Autumn.

But who prefers Winter? Sometimes, those who have preferred every other season first.

A love for Spring may not survive the prickings of the thorns roses keep hidden.

After weeks of heatwave drought harsh enough to wilt rhododendrons, Summer wears out its welcome.

Autumn can bring the hunger one no longer hopes will ever be sated.

Winter comes, and is just– here.

The trees, so beautiful with their blooms, leaves, and colors? Just a bunch of branches. The soft green field? Semi-underwater. Cold winds break trees in half and scatter them in streets and across rooftops. After the workday begins, the unseen Sun rises. Before 5:00, the unseen Sun has set.

But Autumn is over. Last year’s fleeting landscape has run its course. Branches begin to swell with the maturity that unfolds in the darkness of Winter, to unfold when the Earth and the Sun indicate the time is nigh to unfold, stretch out, and stroll out through the world again.

One who has bloomed, and thrived, and died before, can find within, a fragile, yet indominitable, new bloom.

Come to terms with the past. Clear the head, open the eyes, and look forward again in these long three months of Winter.

Moods play King Of The Mountain. One mood rises to the top of the mind, and fancies itself undislodgable– supreme.

The happy mind can see itself not as a phase, but as the final stage of evolution. “I acknowledge the intractable woes of the world, but from this perspective, I have discovered a way of being happy I think I shall always have.”

The unhappy mind can feel so keenly the unhappiness and misery all around it that it wonders, “Knowing about the wars and refugees, hurricanes and disease, the homeless, the addicts, the unemployed, all the unhappy, the filthy rich, could I ever again be happy?”

The emotional life and intellectual life overlap and form alliances, so that what one feels emotionally is justified intellectually. One can articulate a mood by calling to mind things that make one happy or unhappy. These readymade justifications reinforce the preeminent emotional state and make it that much more firmly entrenched.

But the unified mind is smarter than the sum of its parts. If one is happy, all the unhappiness in the world will not cancel that. The happy person remains aware of the unhappiness in the world and his own misfortunes that have often cast him into a morass of sympathetic unhappiness. Maybe it won’t always suffice, but for the moment, it’s okay.

The unhappy person remains aware of the happiness in the world and his own good luck that give him ample reason not to despair over the opaque fog of unhappiness wherein he is trapped. But he doesn’t care about those things right now. He will someday, just not today. When? Can’t say.

The brain is fickle, nimble, and impressionable.

It might be that one wakes up in a bad mood because he had bad dreams he doesn’t remember. Or good moods put one into a good mood.

A bad mood is no more a bad thing than a cloudy day is a bad thing or good thing or a clear day is a good thing or a bad thing. A blue sky is a dull thing, as is an undifferentiated ceiling of cloud. Some clouds, some sky, some good luck, some bad luck, a bad mood, a good mood: without these basics, we have a less than well-rounded picture.

Different moods are different ways to appreciate all the factors in life that demand responses, reactions, our personal attention, be they an upset stomach, or the threats implied by the Milky Way’s Black Hole.

“‘Rabbi’ (which translated means Teacher),” reads today’s Gospel.

“Suppose some non-Jewish people read this,” thought John. “They might not know what a Rabbi is, so I’d better translate that and explain it.”

Was Jesus actually a Rabbi? Given the issues that drove his contemporaries to distraction, one would think John might have had that in mind when he concluded that all the world wouldn’t hold all the books that could have been written about Jesus. Was he a part-time carpenter/part-time Rabbi? “The only thing more reliable than our Talmudic exegesis is our Jerusalem four-bedroom Craftsman!” might have made a persuasive slogan.

“Jewish people will read it too,” John thought. “I’m just going to spell it out for everybody that Andrew and I called Jesus ‘Rabbi,’ guessing that he’d discern correctly that we knew He knew that we knew He wasn’t a rabbi, but we esteemed His knowledge highly enough that our best way of addressing Him was to call him ‘Rabbi’ because we knew His authority and knowledge were such that in the minds of any intelligent observer, He had the credibility of a Rabbi. And He did pick up on that, of course, and He had a good humor about it.

“Jews and non-Jews alike, that is how I mean ‘Rabbi,’ and that is how I mean ‘Teacher.”

At my service, I’ll ask that the Scriptures be read from the Bible I’ve had since the ’70s, lest people wonder, “How sad that he was impressed by that clumsy syntax!”

Translations can only do so much. As a Christian, my religious life began with the Bible, as explained to me by teachers and adults, as investigated and questioned by myself and my friends, as we tried to reconcile what we were told with what made sense to us at the time.

Age brought exposure to the world, with its unfamiliar peoples, countries, cultures, and religions. We learned to translate the Bible as a vehicle of history, often in violent disagreement with other scriptures and the religions inspired by them.

Christianity in and of itself can be a self-supporting system founded upon a vast network of mutually confirming explanations. A cosmology is created in which all other religions and cultures are explained in ways that confirm the privileged, primary place of Christianity. But to leap across the divide and read the literature of the Hindus, the Buddhists, the Jews, the Muslims, not from the outside, but within them, one realizes that the world needn’t even include Christianity at all to be explained in religious terms.

The Christian needs to interpret this complexity and find for himself, in his own life, a place for the Bible, the Hebrew Scriptures, for Jesus, the Catholic Church, the Buddhists, the Jews, agnostics and atheists, the universe.

“There is but one Teacher, and you are all students,” Jesus said.

And so we are– students, trying to make sense of things.

We had to present one side of the argument, then the other, and decide one way or the other, when I went to high school.

We quickly came to realize there can be many sides of an argument.

Opposing camps can find common ground, and from a thesis-antithesis model, achieve a synthesis. Or one side might be bent on the other side’s annihilation. Skilled in rhetoric, for argument’s sake, one tries to tidy up an issue into a manageable form, but the audience is quick to pounce on the grounds that it’s not as simple as that.

Jesus was often presented with choices: pay tax to Caesar, or not, and to refer that all back to God, or not; stone the woman, or not; talk to her, and have a conversation that might actually help her and do some good, or not; declare the primacy of a commandment, or not, but, so often, that was a losing game for the questioners. People have to play with fire, and it’s a dangerous game, but we have to play with fire.

Would that Jesus were here to answer some of our questions! Like Camus’ protagonist  in “The Fall,” I sometimes think, “If only…. Ah, but what a relief that we’ll never have that chance!”

Nearby, a Catholic high school just fired a high-ranking gay member of the staff, because he had just gotten a gay marriage. Gay marriage is legal in Washington.

What type of society should we have in Washington state? We could select a random group of a 25 Washingtonians and assign them the task. After they had completed their work in amicable, productive, reasonable fashion, one finds out that in the group were Wiccans, Christians, Jews, Native Americans, Buddhists, Atheists, Hindus, Muslims, and three types of Catholics. The group members look around and grin, knowing it’s not necessarily easy to guess who is who.

A theocracy is a different type of world from that. So is high school. If ever a religion sought to create a hotbed of dissent against its very self, it would find its model in Catholic high schools. They’re well-supplied with kids who went to Catholic grade schools and are adept at countering the psychological warfare that goes on between educators and schoolkids. Unreasonable demands are commonplace, and come from those who cannot meet the demands on themselves. The kids are judged by those who demand, “Thou shall not judge.” There can be tensions. The adults actually aren’t a whole lot further down the road of self-knowledge than the kids.

Everyone has a part he has to play.

The gay vice principal has to be himself. He loves someone, and they have to live their unique lives, as men, as a couple. He can choose not to put his position at risk, but he has higher priorities, and faces the consequences of his actions.

The Catholic high school has to be itself. It has its own set of rules, consistent with Catholic doctrine. The school administration has to carry on the governance of the school. They are answerable to the Church, and the parents. Employees of the school must be acceptable to the administration. An employer tries to hire the best candidate for a position. It’s easy to see that a Catholic school might hire someone for a position other than a person in a gay marriage, which is something the church has made a vocal point of unequivocal opposition. 

Students have to be themselves. If a student spots hypocrisy– someone doing something he says noone should do– the student will not be mollified with condescension. What is wrong with a gay marriage? As long as we’re talking about sexual issues, what about all the other frowned-upon activities? Lust? Pedophilia? Adultery? Masturbation? Premarital sex? Pornography? Divorce? These things seem relatively okay to gay marriage, because a gay person who gets married gets fired, whereas everybody else doing the other things doesn’t have to worry so much. Who decided homosexuality and gay marriage are different, and much worse than those other issues? What is the compelling rationale?

Catholics understand that we have a Catholic theology of marriage. Not everybody can have a Catholic marriage. Not everybody wants one. Not everyone is Catholic. A Catholic mariage is a thing unto itself no more threatened by a civil gay marriage in Washington state than by a nondenominational wedding in Oregon. Catholics willing and able to have Catholic mariages will have them.

A civil marriage is not a Catholic marriage. As a Catholic Washingtonian, I absolutely support the right of all Washingtonians to have a legal marriage that is appropriate to their sexuality, that prevents discrimination, that solidifies their status as equal citizens.

If the high school in question had decided they would evaluate their vice principal’s employment on the merits of his work, taking into consideration the complexities of a changing society, and would discuss the issue openly, I would support the school’s thoughtful approach. Sometimes– not always, but sometimes– the adults are wrong, and the kids are right. Sometimes the state is ahead of the Church.

One can throw stones, or one can talk. Nobody should have to let anybody make him throw stones, either at someone else, or at his own true self. 

Professional sports is as intricate, subtle, baffling, and deceptive as any endeavor in the sphere of modern life. How does a society create an effective political system? How does a political system manage a successful economy? How does a family manage a viable family farm? Hard to know. How does one put together a championship sports team? This question, the sports fan readily embraces and expounds upon.

When teams fail, sometimes it’s because fundamental mistakes were made. The observer is pained that what is obvious to him is not apparent to the professionals in charge.

The Seattle Sounders and the University of Washington football team are cases in point.

New people are brought in to improve the team. How can one tell who is likely to be successful, and who is not? Sometimes one wants an experienced player. Sometimes a player with youth and potential is preferred. It’s easy to bring in a player or coach who has been successful for many years and hope he will play at a high level for a few more years. More difficult is to spot the player on the verge of stardom who will be great for many years to come. The ability to acquire such players is the mark of a successful team.

A young player who is hungry, ambitious, inexpensive, and unscathed by the years augurs better for a team than the veteran who has accomplished much with bigger teams, commands a high salary, and is increasingly injury-prone.

A Northwest college football team who signs a coach from a big California program will always be at risk of losing that coach to a bigger, more glamorous college, in California, or elsewhere. When the Washington State Cougars signed a coach from a smaller school in Washington, that was a sound move. For the Huskies to sign a coach from Boise State is a sound move, because Washington is a bigger school, and offers the coach an opportunity to achieve goals not achieved in Idaho.

When the Sounders sign an older player from a bigger league, that is risky. The player might well look back at the glory days of his career, and be happy to collect a substantial paycheck and a glamour position with a smaller team, whose accomplishments couldn’t rival those of his former club. Unlike the youngster from the Seattle suburbs, who has dreamed of playing for the Sounders (and bigger clubs) who dreams of winning MLS championships and, perhaps, moving to a bigger stage.

Better the team that brings out success in its players than the team that hopes players successful in the past will bestow success on the team in the present and future.

You don’t know it, until you become a father, but a father quickly realizes he is in uncharted personal territory. One would not trade the experience for anything, but is it “priceless?” Not if one accepts that love and suffering are the albeit-unpriceable prices of fatherhood.

The potential for absorbing pain that a father must accept is unprecedented in his life. The vulnerability is unknown and unquantifiable. Some dangers are common and well-known, but in the golf swing of life, what went wrong last time isn’t the thing that will go wrong the next time. While fixing one thing, something worse goes wrong, with a worldwide television audience watching.

In accepting the presence of a child, one accepts the possibility of the irreplaceable loss of the child. Even the thought that “something might happen” is terrifying enough to keep a parent awake at night.  

As intense as a father’s feelings are for his child, so immense and vast is the suffering that may lie in wait for the parent as the child undertakes his solo combat with his life and his world. A child arrives innocent (leaving aside the obtuse issue of “original sin”) and undefeated, and remains blameless throughout toddlerhood. That the child is utterly dependent is a defense for parents against accusations of self-interest in their all-encompassing efforts to protect the child.

The father, for the first time in his life, is actually “needed.” Parents don’t “need” their children. But a child doesn’t come into the world without a father. Father figures can be many, and superior in almost every meaningful way to the biological father, but if the baby is to have his biological father, there is only man qualified. Without the biological father, the child is left with a missing link to his past, with questions no one can answer as well.

To understand one’s self as a child’s father, a father looks to himself for insights into the child. My father died when I was very young, so that has shaped my understanding of it, but my perception is that, above all else, the individual is unique, and sovereign. I know only myself. I did not know my father to know in what personal ways I am descended from him. I know my brothers, but not how they are descended from our father. I know myself and how I have been influenced by events, but I do not know what qualities I inherited from my father that made me the person who was influenced in unique, particular ways by those events.

Having one son, he is the only possible son I could have had, if my wife and I only had one, although I know well from my brothers that two people can produce a wide range of children. Each is as inevitable, and random, as the others, brothers who define themselves more by their differences than their similarities.

To my son, I am, and will be, “father:” an archetype, the only person who could have been his father, the only one who could have been the husband of his mother, the only one who could have been the father of his siblings. But I will also be just one more father among fathers, one more parent among parents, one more obstacle in his way. He will be the unique person, the sovereign being who is transcendent, above and beyond all the historical and family baggage, the one who will discover for himself, not his “potential,” as my teachers used to say, but his aptitudes, and passions, and inclinations, while his father sometimes wonders where it’s all coming from.

As he settles into himself and looks outward, and inward, he will not look up to me, or down on me, but he will see me alongside himself, not just as his father, but as a fellow man. A fellow human being, who, like himself, was once upon a time his age, once upon a time had dreams that never came true, once upon a time had problems that had no solutions, once upon a time was a drifter without a wife and son, with a future with everything uncertain.

Perhaps he will marry, and have a son, and eventually, the details will fall into place, and he’ll appreciate all the very good reasons why his father had always seemed to think, sometimes for no apparent reason, that never was anyone so special as his son!