mgpcpastor's blog

I never know what to do on Father’s Day.
Last Friday the radio had one a “tell us one piece of wisdom your father gave you” ring in.
I blank.
From sixteen years with my father I don’t have a piece of wisdom.
I don’t think the thirty four years since have dulled the memories.
I used to say I’d learnt what not to do from him.
But with the benefit of a few more years experience of life that’s changing a little bit.
Growing up with a keenly developed insight into human failing can only take you so far.
It won’t help you build relationships.
It’ll keep you distanced and disappointed.
Growing older I’d like to think I’m developing an insight into human frailty.
Mine and others.
A knowledge of your own frailty fuels compassion and patience with people in theirs.
Which is necessary to nurture relationships.
It also helps me think of my father more in terms of his frailties than his failings.
Which helps to take away some of the sense of distance.
We’ve got more in common there than I’d ever have thought.
And maybe it’s something he’s helping me learn, after all.

Here’s a song from Andy Gullahorn.
It’s called Line In The Sand, which features on his recently released album Beyond The Frame.
This is a live performance from a couple of years ago.
Andy has an understated and unassuming way of composing lyrics that just wander up to you in everyday ordinariness and *bam* hit you with a profound truth.
But this pretty much sums it up for me.

The lyrics:
When I was a kid / The second of four / I remember my dad would sometimes call me by my brother’s name / It bothered me then / I thought if he loved me more / There’s no way that he’d repeat the same mistake / I swore to him that when I’d finally grown / I would never do that sort of thing / But now that I’ve got three kids of my own / I love them and confuse them just the same / What I thought was true / What I thought was right / Sure looks a little different after all this time / No the truth won’t change / But perspective can / So much for the line in the sand / Somuchforthelineinthesand/ Therewasatime/Iwasonfire/IhadaloveforaWordI thought I knew but didn’t understand / ‘Cause I used it as a weapon / To judge from on high / With no love or grace for any who were struggling / But struggles of my own I could not hide / And I found myself among the least of men / So you might imagine my surprise / As I came to recognize myself in them / Chorus / Nobody knows what he wrote on the ground / Between the men with the stones and the one left to die / But there in the sand in front of that crowd / Was the sweep of a hand erasing a line / So give a name to your fear / Put a face to the name / Take a look at the tears in the eye of that face and feel the pain / Take a walk in his shoes and feel something change / And know it’s not the truth / No it’s not the truth / It’s you