Frederick Buechner,'Whistling in the Dark' When a child is born, a father is born. A mother is born, too of course, but at least for her it's a gradual process. Body and soul, she has nine months to get used to what's happening. She becomes what's happening. But for even the best-prepared father, it happens all at once. On the other side of a plate-glass window, a nurse is holding up something roughly the size of a loaf of bread for him to see for the first time. Even if he should decide to abandon it forever ten minutes later, the memory will nag him to the grave. He has seen the creation of the world. It has his mark on it. He has its mark on him. Both marks are, for better or for worse, indelible. All sons, like all daughters, are prodigals if they're smart. Assuming the Old Man doesn't run out on them first, they will run out on him if they are to survive, and if he's smart he won't put up too much of a fuss. A wise father sees all this coming, and maybe that's why he keeps his distance from the start. He must survive too. Whether they ever find their way home again, none can say for sure, but it's the risk he must take if they're ever to find their way at all. In the meantime, the world tends to have a soft spot in its heart for lost children. Lost fathers have to fend for themselves. Even as the father lays down the law, he knows that someday his children will break it as they need to break it if ever they're to find something better than law to replace it. Until and unless that happens, there's no telling the scrapes they will get into trying to lose him and find themselves. Terrible blnders will be made-dissapointments and failures, hurts and losses of every kind. And they'll keep making them even after they've found themselves too, of course, because growing up is a process that goes on and on. And every hard knock they ever get, knocks the father even harder still, if that's possible, and if and when they finally come through more or less in one piece at the end, there's maybe no rejoicing greater than his in all creation. -Fatherhood.
Fatherhood
Related
I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ...
KELLY JONES (All the grief she had suffered over her lifetime had moulded her face into a mask of eternal sadnes...
JEAN SASSON You release the pain of the past and press on. It's a new day, and God is doing a new thing. He want...
CRAIG GROESCHEL Empathy is the new measurement of everything. It doesn't matter what religion you have, what God you...
C. JOYBELL C. He's for you and wants to help you be the person He created you to be.
CRAIG GROESCHEL The giver is more than the gift; God is more than the blessing. And our being kept waiting on Him is...
ANDREW MURRAY The best thing you can do for your kids is to show them God working in you on a daily basis.
CRAIG GROESCHEL They were living to themselves: self, with its hopes, and promises, and dreams, still had hold of th...
ELIZABETH PAYSON PRENTISS May I never neither turn left nor turn right in my journey of life, but may I go straight to Christ ...
ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH What made this week even better for him was his defense. He has improving defensively and if he keep...
BEN BORRIES For of what use is existence to the creature if it cannot know its Maker? How could men be reasonabl...
ATHANASIUS OF ALEXANDRIA Then came the reflection, how little at any time could a father do for the wellbeing of his children...
GEORGE MACDONALD If God give you strength and courage, don't use it to intimidate people or overpower them, rather us...
ANTHONY LICCIONE The others cast themselves down upon the fragrant grass, but Frodo stood awhile still lost in wonder...
J.R.R. TOLKIEN How should I know?" said Alice, surprised at her own courage. "It's no business of mine."
The Q...
LEWIS CARROLL He made a pit and digged it. He was cunning in his plans and industrious in his labors. He stooped t...
CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON There are a hundred ways in which a boy can injure—if not indeed kill—himself. The more adventur...
CHRISTOPHER MILNE I feel so honored to be able to say "What I do is for my son" without that being an excuse to do stu...
C. JOYBELL C. Not," Swift said firmly, "for all the tea in China."
"That expression has never made sense to m...
LISA KLEYPAS Remember particularly that you cannot be a judge of anyone. For no one can judge a criminal until he...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY If we all took a minute to reflect upon the wrong we do we would be quite surprised or shocked.Inste...
GARY F EVANS... Yes, our Father has a plan, Ciminae,” he said. “But he leaves it up to his children to accept hi...
SHAUN MESSICK In a world in which the common rule which binds and regulates what the general masses feel is underm...
ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH Some people never take a chance and never know what it's like to live life to the full.
CHLOE THURLOW For he has faith enough, he feels, if he were really to delve into himself, faith enough to move mou...
JENS PETER JACOBSEN Better a little with God than a whole lot without Him. Better to have fewer houses, cars, appliances...
CRAIG GROESCHEL Her heart--is given him, with all its love and truth. She would joyfully die with him, or, better th...
CHARLES DICKENS Have you ever watched kids on a playground? There will be one kid taller than all the rest. He’s o...
JAXON REED Let me implore the reader to try to believe, if only for a moment, that God, who made these deservin...
C.S. LEWIS What's the difference between people who see and seek gaps and those that see and seek bridges? The ...
RICHIE NORTON The Father and His Sons
A father had a family of sons who were perpetually quarreling among themselv...
AESOP Beaming into the thick of a tree without becoming a lifelong tree hugger was a tricky business. A pr...
CHRISTINA ENGELA Love and marriage are of the Father's most powerful means for the making of his foolish little ones ...
GEORGE MACDONALD Human life is precious; the life of a child even more so. Knowing that your grasp is the only thing ...
KAREN RODWILL SOLOMON Continuing a short series about the early church: Christians love one another. They never fail t...
ARISTIDES I am often asked how it is that I am able to value people to such a deep degree. Apparently, I exhib...
C. JOYBELL C. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unle...
BERTRAND RUSSELL They were talking more distantly than if they were strangers who had just met, for if they had been ...
W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM You may fancy the Lord had His own power to fall back upon. But that would have been to Him just the...
GEORGE MACDONALD Feast of Peter & Paul, Apostles No man can be without his god. If he have not the true God to ble...
RICHARD CHEVENIX TRENCH He is struck by her overview of his situation. It is as if she has understood his life. He is taken ...
HILARY MANTEL Man is complete in himself. When they go into the world, the world will disagree with them. That is ...
OSCAR WILDE Doctors are pleased with the way the operation went. But he is still connected to life support and i...
JOEL MENARD A man must know his destiny
if he does not recognize it, then he is lost. By this I mean, once, tw...
GENERAL GEORGE S. PATTON A man must know his destiny… if he does not recognize it, then he is lost. By this I mean, once, t...
GEORGE S. PATTON JR. A man must know his destiny… if he does not recognize it, then he is lost. By this I mean, once, t...
GENERAL GEORGE S. PATTON A young wolfhound must meet his first wolf someday, but if the wolf sees him as a puppy, if he acts ...
ROBERT JORDAN You must save what you can of your life; you musn't lose it all simply because you've lost a part.
HENRY JAMES If a father does not altogether embrace a life of uncompromised sacrifice as the core of all princip...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Kindness is universal. Sometimes being kind allows others to see the goodness in humanity through yo...
GERMANY KENT Yes. The opposite of love is not hate. It is indifference. That is why few people find God. They go ...
CHRISTOPHER PIKE Whenever one speaks of lonely people one takes too much for granted. One thinks people all know what...
RAINER MARIA RILKE In the white man's world, language, too -- and the way which the white man thinks of it--has undergo...
N. SCOTT MOMADAY Nothing feebler than a man does the earth raise up, of all the things which breathe and move on the ...
HOMER Good Friday They say it was old sins that troubled him, the past failures of the man, that made t...
A. J. GOSSIP It was only one of a dozen or twenty vocations which he had taken up at various times, only to drop ...
WILLIAM HENRY HUDSON No." Laurence said, "I mean to retire when we have returned. I have enough money to keep Temeraire n...
NAOMI NOVIK They don't fear it at all, they see it as a liberation. And when they divorce, of course, they get e...
KATHY LETTE If Christ has been given us, if we are called to his discipleship we are given all things, literally...
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER The scientific method gives us
information by testing and repeating observable things so that we
can...
LEWIS N. ROE Each of them had done their best. Matt was still his friend. For Meredith, maybe the day would come ...
L.J. SMITH The perfection of His relation to us swallows up all our imperfections, all our defeats, all our evi...
GEORGE MACDONALD Life is not a game. Still, in this life, we choose the games we live to play.
J.R. RIM Long ago there was a little boy who lived in the wood with his father and his sister. One night, the...
S.R. CRAWFORD Almost every day, for years now, he has taken pen in hand to write to her. He has no names or addres...
ALESSANDRO BARICCO When we Shienarans ride, every man knows who is next in line if the man in command falls. A chain un...
ROBERT JORDAN It was the morning when she went confront my father's killer. I asked her why she wouldn't let one o...
SHERRILYN KENYON He doesn't know this now, but in the years to come he will, again and again, test Harold's claims of...
HANYA YANAGIHARA [Another student, Ken, the son of Korean immigrants, enrages his ambitious father when he decides to...
FRANK MCCOURT "Who hates his neighbor has not the rights of a child." And not only has he no rights as a child, he...
SØREN KIERKEGAARD No matter what kind of chance they got, he was able to get a piece of it and keep us in the game. As...
MIKE KNUBLE He sleeps and sleeps, and the days go by, ... I love him dearly and for ever, but this lack of drive...
NOEL COWARD The unfortunate thing is that, sometimes, we slip, but, fortunately, consciously or unconsciously, w...
ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH She sucked in a shuddering breath, and he pulled back far enough for them to share breath. Her finge...
SARAH J. MAAS Most of the world is either asleep or dead. The religious people are, for the most part, asleep. The...
THOMAS MERTON Funny thing how it is. If a man owns a little property, that property is him, it's part of him, and ...
JOHN STEINBECK The very power of [textbook writers] depends on the fact that they are dealing with a boy: a boy who...
C.S. LEWIS The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learn...
WALTER LIPPMANN A baby is born into this world in a state of fear. Total paranoia and awareness. He sees the world w...
CHARLES MANSON In a day and age where it seems like women want to be with unstable, psychotic, manipulative freaks;...
C. JOYBELL C. His friends told him that nobody was interested in his goddam soul unless it was the priest and he m...
FLANNERY O'CONNOR He's not a typical Storm Cat in that he has a great mind. You wouldn't know that he was in the barn ...
ELLIOTT WALDEN Despereaux looked at his father, at his grey-streaked fur and trembling whiskers and his front paws ...
KATE DICAMILLO A father may have a child who is ugly and lacking in all the graces, and the love he feels for him p...
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES SAAVEDRA Commemoration of Cecilia, Martyr at Rome, c.230 Commemoration of Clive Staples Lewis, Spiritual Wri...
C. S. LEWIS The abuser’s mood changes are especially perplexing. He can be a different person from day to day,...
LUNDY BANCROFT If a child plays sport early in childhood, and doesn't give it up, he will play sport for the re...
FERRAN ADRIA Until we understand what the land is, we are at odds with everything we touch. And to come to that u...
WENDELL BERRY Though the colored man is no longer subject to be bought and sold, he is still surrounded by an adve...
FREDERICK DOUGLASS If he can keep making the progress that he has made and the trainers give him the OK, then it will b...
JODY ALLEN Once on a yellow piece of paper with green lines
he wrote a poem
And he called it "Chops"...
STEPHEN CHBOSKY [Gatsby] stretched out his hand desperately as if to snatch only a wisp of air, to save a fragment o...
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD Friendship is a double-edged sword one side it can be great and true but the other side it spells be...
GARY F EVANS... I don't define lust as anything evil or nasty. Lust as defined by me, is the feeling of desire: a de...
C. JOYBELL C. Ana Magdalena nods. For an instant the blue eyes fix on his. 'She sees straight through me', he thin...
J.M. COETZEE Commemoration of Gilbert of Sempringham, Founder of the Gilbertine Order, 1189 Christ became ever ...
A. J. GOSSIP Wake up to a brand new day and realize why you woke up to meet the day! Live to the end of another d...
ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH Clay in the hands of a good potter suffers so many good turns, but in the end, we see its real and t...
ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH Do you suppose, gentlemen, that our children as they grow up and begin to reason can avoid such ques...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY I have a dream, I have a vision, I have a mission, I have to do something, I will do this at this ti...
ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH