In the fall (2020), I took a New York Theological Seminary “Urban Leadership Seminar” with Bishop Alfred Johnson for continuing education. Our guest lecturer, Dr. Wanda Lundy, encouraged us to be aware of the gifts of our ancestors. How do their voices and lives shape our ministry? How do they continue to speak to us?

I thought of a treasure box of my dad’s sermons, tucked away in my home office cabinet and realized it is time to have some new conversations with my father.  As my “sending” pastor, mentor, and dear family friend, Bishop Johnson also had served as my father’s bishop so it is perhaps fitting that it was in his class that this project began to take shape. With the support of my Creative Haven sisters, I began the process this year.

Today marks nine years since my dad died but I am grateful for the many ways his voice and life continues to shape me. 

Walk By Faith

6/15/97 2 Cor 5:6-10

Chris Hinnen

Let’s face it. 

Being a father is not easy.

Granted, being a mother is not easy either, but this being Father’s Day I will stick with the experience with which I am most familiar.

In general, fathers have a reputation for not being there for their children. In many cases this is physically true. The father is just not there. For many other fathers there is an emotional distance that, once it is recognized, can be overcome. Still, that process is not easy. 

For those fathers in my generation and older, separation came very early in the the child’s life. I remember it well. When my daughter Melissa was born, I was sitting in a little waiting room. I smoked, pacing… yes, pacing. What else is one to do at 4am waiting for your life to change irreversibly? There was a phone on the table. It rang. Melissa was born! She lay at her mother’s breast even as we spoke. I was in a room down the hall and far away.

I was not to be at the birth of TJ or Benjamin either. That was a choice made as both Ben and TJ are adopted. Still I was there when we picked up TJ at JFK… And when we went to the social workers office and took Ben home.

Distance. 

Emotional mileage is not an easy thing to gauge. One can really only look back and see where one has been. What has the landscape looked like. Alas! Undoubtedly a wrong turn or two or two hundred has taken place. All parenting,  motherhood and fatherhood, is a process of trial and error. Ultimately, all a father can do is to see where his children have turned out. If he has been present at all then some of the responsibility lies with him. 

Being a father with a father still living is too in an interesting place. I can look at my children and see how they turned out (or are in the process of turning out). 

I look at my 90 year old father, learning more of his history as he gets older. In a life of frail human relationships it is a wonder that any of us turned out as well as we did.

I have been thinking that all of this related to Paul’s message for us today. He says that we walk by faith and not by sight. In many ways, that is true in the process of being a father. He goes on to say that from now on, we regard no one from a human point of view. So whether our fathers were absent in body, whether they were absent in spirit or emotion, we have a way of reconciling that in our Christian lives. In us, everything old has passed away. In us, through Christ, everything has become new. 

No human relationship is perfect. So in those place where our relationship with our fathers was/is very good, there is room to show more love. There is room to move, to improve what is there. As we grow in our Christness, our capacity for closing emotional distances increases. What was far may become closer. What is near can become closer still. 

In Christian life, the birth/adoption of a child is (hopefully) a joy. Relationship outside the womb for father and mother can only begin at that moment. We honor that holiness at baptism. Here we are reminded of a pattens love for a child. Here we feel the connecting power of love that our parent God has for God’s children. Here the greatest possibility for future intimacy, imitating the love of Jesus Christ, takes place. 

As we move toward the communion table, let us be aware of the wonderful power of Christ to make all things new. 

Melissa Hinnen Reflection:

We walk by faith, not by sight

2/22/21

Recently I have found myself repeating the mantra, “I am doing the best I can.” I recognize that in the midst of pandemic my best doesn’t match what it was a a year ago. I feel fragile. I feel inadequate to the magnitude of the impact of this crisis. And while I am not a perfectionist, I can see the cracks where the results are less than excellent. 

But I am doing the best I can! I am walking by faith and trusting in the Spirit to guide me through day by day. As the crisis unfolds, even as I am alive to moments of pain and fear, I am also alive to moments of love, joy, and peace. I trust that we have an opportunity for new creation, a new way of life in a post covid world. 

As I read your Father’s Day message, I recognize a similar fragility in parenting.

You mention being in the waiting room when I was born and how your life was about to be changed. When my own water broke, 33 years ago, beginning the labor process, I remember having a “ish about to get real!” understanding of the choice I had made. You brought me to the hospital, and waited for the 12 hours I was in labor. As soon as Cassie was born, you came into the birthing room and held her. 

While you always kept a clear boundary – you were Cassie’s grandfather not her father, you still maintained a fathering presence for her in a way that her own father did not. As a teenage single mom, I am grateful for your support and the ways that you gave me a safety net as I grew into motherhood. 

Looking back, I recognize that I always felt inadequate to the responsibility. I have to wonder, does any parent feel confident that we will raise a kind, productive human being without causing them irreparable harm through our imperfect parenting? 

We walk by faith, not by sight leaning into the lessons learned from our parents. Doing the best we can just as they did the best they could. 

As I now watch in awe as my daughter raises her daughters, my role has changed. Our relationship has changed. Where once my job was to raise a responsible adult, I now get to be Cassie’s friend. And I feel reassured in my competency as her mother when Cassie turns to me for parental advice. 

The bonus is that I get to indulge in the joys of being Mima to SophiAna and Symphony. You would love them, Dad and I know they would adore you. It is a special privilege to share stories and photos of you with SophiAna. You continue to be a presence in our lives. 

Reading your words as I begin this project, I am thankful for this treasure chest you left behind and the chance to continue to strengthen my relationship with you. 

You wrote:

“No human relationship is perfect. So (even) in those places where our relationship with our fathers was/is very good, there is room to show more love. There is room to move, to improve what is there. As we grow in our Christness, our capacity for closing emotional distances increases. What was far may become closer. What is near can become closer still.” 

You continue, “We feel the connecting power of love that our parent God has for God’s children. Here, the greatest possibility for future intimacy, imitating the love of Jesus Christ, takes place.”