Fifteen years ago this winter my dad drove me up to Madison for the third and final surgery on my right collarbone, which I had shattered earlier that year. (I had front-flipped onto blacktop, accomplishing a football injury while playing basketball. It’s a whole sad, dumb story.) We left home early in the morning and […]
Classic Jazz, Pinot Noir, and Law/Gospel Couplets
He had ice water, I had the remnants of a large bottle of pinot noir. We clinked cup and bottle in a toast. He had been invited into the fellowship of the fellas — my exclusive man-cave or rather man-dungeon (I’m poor after all). It had been a long weekend filled with parental demands and […]
“Ad Astra” and Dad
Usually I disdain movies. But aesthetics can seduce, and I am a sucker for dystopia, and, well, last night I was beat. So we went to see “Ad Astra.” I had heard of the sublime art direction and the contrast between the full-on space travel and the intimate subplot of the father/son relationship. You may […]
Divine Amnesia, Cookies, and Ice Cream
Last Saturday, my son accompanied me on my typical weekend errands, and after he patiently endured the tedium of Costco’s packed aisles and long lines, we were finally en route in the Dodge Millennium Falcon to an impromptu father-son lunch date. As we approached our destination, he randomly blurted out, “Dad, remember that time last […]
Healing in the Middle
When I say Asa, I sing Asa – Bry Webb, “Asa” Our middle child is named Asa, which means Healer in Hebrew. His biblical namesake was the fifth ruler in the House of David, the third king of Judah. In his two and a half years, our Asa has had more days with a royally […]
Catch Me
A new friend, who is joining the church I serve, offered a Rumi reading to me from his morning devotional: Hold up a mirror to your worst destructive habits, for that is how the real making begins. ~ 1995 was my first year of high school. That spring, my baseball coach announced to the entire […]
Basements Floods and Gratuitous Grace
It’s been too long since we posted an entry from our maiden voyage publication, Judgment and Love, the price of which just went down considerably. This one comes from Justin Holcomb and was used to very powerful effect by Steve Brown in his talk at the Liberate conference earlier this year, also included below. Unconditional […]
Fathers and Sons in the Shadow of the Cross
My third anniversary as a father is fast approaching and I find myself asking, like David Byrne, ‘How did I get here?’ I’m 40 now. I’ve got a toddler. I’ve got a proper job. I’ve got a little gray hair. I eat vegetables and watch my fiber intake. I quit going to clubs years ago; […]
Michael Jordan is (Metaphorically) Killing His Sons
One of the lessons assigned in my church this past Sunday was a selection from Ephesians 4 and 5, wherein the writer implores the Ephesians to live a holy life, ultimately calling them to “be imitators of God” (Eph 5:1). This is, no doubt, a heavy burden, laid crushingly bare by Jesus in the Sermon […]
Thoughts on the Dying of My Father
Before we move on from Father’s Day, a personal reflection from Jeff Dean. Jeff’s father died on April 10, 2012 and this piece was written in early March. My father is dying. There is, of course, a certain literal sense in which all of us are “dying,” but the vast majority of us haven’t been […]
Long Suffering, Teary-Eyed, Catch-Playing Fathers (and Their Grateful Children)
A couple of post-Father’s Day items to make us all cry. The first comes from Tiffany Thompson and appeared in The Toronto Standard, a funny, honest, and ultimately incredibly touching account of a father-daughter relationship “Disappointing Dad: Reflections on Father’s Day”. One part Protestant guilt, three parts Grace equals more than an echo of heavenly […]
Coal: The Power of the Good Father
In the (by now quite famous in our circles) series of talks given at The Cathedral of the Advent by Professor Rod Rosenbladt on the subject of fatherhood, one of the first insights presented was that of Helmut Thielicke’s The Waiting Father. In this, his work on Jesus’s parables, Thielicke artfully and tragically describes modern […]
