Father's Day

My lesson in church today nearly crashed and burned.  Speaking to a group of all men about the eternal nature of families I said, "I'd like to take the last ten minutes and let any of you speak who would like to share what you've learned from your fathers."  How could I have known that the results would be disastrous?  I had a couple of positive answers, but then the room went silent before two men spoke about how their mothers were better fathers to them their actual fathers, and one man said, "My father was an example to me because I learned to do the exact opposite of everything he did."  I realized two things: one, I needed to get the lesson on a positive track quickly before the time was up, and two, I am incredibly lucky to have a father who really is a good example to me.  In that context, the following is the greatest lesson I have ever learned from my father:

Anyone who knows Dad knows that he loves talk radio.  One day as I rode in the car with him (I could not have been more than eight years old) I heard the speaker say something about the Jewish State of Israel.  Considering myself a connoisseur of the states I asked,

"Is there a state named Israel?" to which Dad answered that "state" can mean "country."

 "Oh," I responded, "what does "Jewish" mean?" To this Dad gave a short description of the Jewish religion.  Listening further to the radio's description of problems in the Middle East I asked,

"What's a Muslim?" to which I also received another (relatively) short lesson in one of the world's religions.

This got me thinking.  I asked Dad what other religions existed and we started going through some of the worlds major religions including a few different Christian denominations.  It did not take me long to analyze my new-found knowledge and begin to expound on the many ways in which they were all wrong. I assume that what Dad said next was an attempt to encourage some cultural understanding without unnecessarily hurting my pride.

"What you have to remember is that God is God is God."  Dad said.  "If a man believes that he was created by a higher power and in doing good to others, he worships the same God as you.  He might not know everything about God that you know, but you can respect him."  Of all the things that I was learning at that age, that has stuck with me (I still have trouble naming all fifty states without a map).

 If I had learned nothing else from my dad, he still would have been able to say that he had done his Christian duty as a father; he taught me the two great commandments.  But he taught me so much more than that.  His example of service, especially defending the defenseless, has also stayed with me.  As an attempt to bring my lesson in church back to something resembling a positive message, I shared a scripture of what fathers can and ought to be, and that I think my father has done his best to live:

"No power or influence ought to be maintained...only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; by kindness, and pure knowledge...

Let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men, and to the household of faith, and let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly..."

D&C 121: 41-42, 45.

I love you, Dad.  Happy Fathers' Day.