Father's Day

This past Sunday in church, Tomás stood at the front of the little tin-roofed church and bowed his head.  “Padre celestial,” he opened, and I lost myself so fully in the beauty and relevancy of those two words (“heavenly father”) on Father’s Day that I heard nothing more.  The congregation started whispering their own prayers, phrases like “Ohhh Dios” overlapping each other and rising like a stream, creating something close to madness or the Pentecost, which for some is the same thing.  

Later that night before I fell asleep, I muttered those two words, wandering at their effect on me.  “Heavenly” elicits images of skies full with stars, of the golden light of morning; “father” stirs up memories of me riding on Dad’s shoulders or crying into his shirt.  And I felt so filled with the wonder of those words together and how God gave me a piece of the heavens, a piece of Himself as the Father, through my own father. 

Of all the fathers I could have ended up with, I have the one who loves to laugh, the one who plays soccer with his kids when he really just wants to nap, the one who, at every church luncheon, brings drinks to the elderly women.  I have the father who loves me through the times when I am selfish or stubborn and even though he doesn’t love me perfectly, he loves me in a way that is perfect in that it is through the Father himself.