Happy Father’s Day
Happy Father’s Day, Daddy.
Two summers ago, my brother-in-law invited my dad and me to go on his annual fishing trip to Canada. We camped on an island in Lingham Lake in northeastern Ontario. The smallmouth and largemouth bass fishing was excellent.
I grew up in and around Richmond, Virginia and went fishing fairly often with my father and uncle, either on the Chickahominy River at Ed Allen’s, on the Chesapeake Bay out of Urbanna or Deltaville, or just at the lake in our neighborhood. As an adult, I haven’t fished much at all, so when I was invited on this trip, I readily accepted. It was a wonderful trip; the lake is remote (at the end of a five-mile jeep trail, which begins 10 miles from the nearest small town) and quiet, the fishing was awesome (please don’t go there though!), and everyone we met was very friendly. Plus, I got to spend a lot of time with my then 11 year-old nephew.
To quote my brother-in-law’s friend, “we fished hard”, on the water at 7, maybe back to the campsite at lunch, back out all afternoon, dinner, and back out until after dark. After a few days of this, my dad and I took an afternoon off and sat around the fire for a few hours and just talked. About fishing, politics, our dogs, 9-11, my childhood, his childhood, his parent’s divorce. I told him how much it meant to me that he and my mom were still together, that it was an important lesson to me, and that their example helped me in my marriage. A sometimes angry son, a forgiving father, and several hours alone by a fire.
Happy father’s day.
Selfishness
As the days get longer, Bailey gets up earlier. Today it was 5:35 am when he started to whine next to the bed. I usually tell him to “go lay down, it’s too early”, and he does listen (and obey, for a while at least); but today I got up right away and we headed outside.
After our usual saunter around the yard, I sat down in a chair in the driveway and tried to wake up. He had other ideas. He grabbed his basketball, a plush, nearly indestructible full-sized ball I found in the woods behind our house last fall. For a lab owner, indestructible is good, because they can chew through most any toy in minutes.
When he gets this ball in his mouth, he shakes it violently, whirling around in circles. Then comes the “imposition”. He not-so-subtly puts the ball in my lap, still holding it tightly in his mouth, and looks at me with eyes that say, “Pull it. Just pull it, please.” I don’t really recommend tug-of-war with dogs, it tends to make them possessive and teaches them to never give anything to you. But Bailey’s pretty good about settling down when I need him to so I usually indulge him.
I tugged him around for a good ten minutes or so, with a few fetches thrown in. Finally, both of us bored, I sat back down and he ate his food. I turned to Philippians 2 and read about Christ’s example of humility. Verse 4 struck me in particular: “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” I thought of how this applies to my morning ritual. I love time alone, to read, to putter around the yard, or to just sit and think. Bailey is always with me and beyond the imposition and feeding him, he makes few demands. So getting up early is something I usually enjoy. In fact, I’ve been pretty jealous of this time in the past, particularly when my girls get up earlier than usual and the silence is broken. This morning, reading verse 4, I became aware of this selfishness with my time in a way I’ve not experienced before.