i just got back from a week on the east coast, to celebrate my dad's 60th birthday. it was an eventful week, i got to see 5 friends from college, all of whom i hadn't seen in 3-5 years. re-acquaintance with people and places i haven't seen in a long time always triggers some kind of emotional response in me...maybe i'll write something about that later.

it was my dad's 60th birthday, and my mom planned an elaborate surprise celebration for him at church...me and my sister's duties were to say something, perform something, and make a slide show out of something. i wasn't really feeling up to it, especially the speech part. i couldn't in good conscience say something along the lines of being grateful for the eternally solid love of a father or anything. besides being banal and overly saccharine, it would feel dishonest - me and my dad just don't have that kind of relationship. not that he hasn't provided for me or loved me in his own way, it's just that we don't know each other well enough for me to make that kind of grand claim about his place in my life.

strangely enough, my recalcitrance about the whole thing started wearing down when i began putting pictures of my dad's childhood into the slideshow the night before the celebration. it was seriously unnerving seeing pictures of my parents when they were children and young adults. it's weird thinking of them in any function other than the one they serve as my parents i suppose. it made me start thinking about what kind of life journey my dad has been on, and what role i've played in it, and how i've seen him evolve and mature over the part of his journey that has included me. so in the middle of putting the slideshow together, i paused to start typing my speech, and this is what i ended up saying in front of his congregation the next day:

*****

My dad has always been somewhat of a mystery to me. When I think about his role in my life, I think about all the things he’s done for me and our family, all the things he’s given to me and our family. Though he’s quick to smile, he’s also often introspective and difficult to read. Seems like I inherited the introspection while the smiles went to my sister.

In my life, I haven’t given enough thought to the profundity of how, out of all the possible ways in which our relationship with our Lord could be described, the most common one is a Father and His children. This is amazingly profound. This means that my relationship with this man sitting here is cut out of the same pattern as my relationship with God Himself. The way he views me is a slice of the way He views me.

Yet this is an incomplete analogy because God is unchanging, but my dad is changing…he is human, and he is changing to become more like God. I’ve seen it over the course of my life. Instead of becoming harder and more prideful, he has become gentler and more humble, and this has played out in my relationship with him.

My dad has always been somewhat of a mystery to me, but it is a changing mystery. He is a man who expresses himself through giving and service. Whatever I’ve needed, he’s provided. I realize now that these provisions have changed over the years as well, as my needs have changed, as I have changed, and as he has changed. Out of all the things he’s ever given to me, which include dolls, giant teddy bears, spending money, short grunts of encouragement, a Super Nintendo, food, clothes, rides to school, and, uh, college tuition, the thing I cherish the most is not something that I can touch or hold – it’s an email I received from him two years ago, on my 24^th birthday. This day is about him and not me, but I want to recite the email because I think it contains the subtleties of his heart, as my dad, that have taken me my entire life to begin to understand and appreciate. It reads:

Dear Pete,

Happy Birthday, Though we can not celebrate together,

May this birthday become the one that your launch own destination,

And take up the challenge of our family's future direction.

Let your ingenuity and creativity blossom,

And bear fruit in the long run.

I thank the Lord for giving you a tender heart,

And a loving spirit for others.

Continue to walk on the path of the Lord,

Which is better than any other way.

Take a good care of yourself,

That is the best gift to Mom and me.

Thanks, Dad. I read that now and then when I need a grunt of encouragement, when I need affirmation, when I just need to know that I am loved. So thanks, Dad, for your mystery, for your heart, for everything.

*****