Beloved, shelter us with your grace as we remember the fathers we miss, the ones passed from this vale or from our lives in other ways. May we cherish the blessings and heal from the heartache, carrying forth in love and compassion.
Beloved, may we give thanks and dwell in gladness for the fathers who show up, who love, who risk faithfully to fulfill the call to inclusive justice and to lifelong learning and to restorative play and wonderment. May we cherish these blessings and embody them, regardless of our parenting path or gender, caring for each generation with wholeheartedness and wisdom.
Beloved, may we give refuge and welcome and loving care to those who endured abuse and who seek healing. May we cherish the blessing of truth and acknowledge that such wrongdoing can and does happen, damaging people and often making it more difficult to find and cherish blessings, to risk faithfully, to love and be loved.
Beloved, teach us to turn from the kind of fatherhood that curses, that teaches some they are worthless, that sows and practices injustice personally and institutionally. May we cherish the wisdom to choose and create a different path, where fathers can be tender, where every person matters, where patriarchy gives way to equity, where all matter, no exceptions.
Beloved may we remember and cherish the perfectly imperfect, knowing we are all capable of less than wonderful choices, or dealing with less than optimal circumstances. May we bless and give thanks for those fathers creatively, constructively parenting in this world with all their heart, and all their love, and all their understanding they can bring, partial and better than some days or hours as that is for any of us. In modeling dealing with what is with creativity, courage and love, may we too meet each day, imperfect and still faithfully living.
Beloved, may we delight in the fathers and father-mothers who bless this world with their presence, who courageously meet the call to love in their imperfect, faithful, whole-hearted ways. May we cherish these blessings and seek to embody them ourselves, in our own ways, wherever we are and wherever we go, now an always. Amen.
