Y: Your Father's Day

Thank God for feminism, because as a result our generation's men are so much more engaged in their children's lives. Increasing numbers of men are making the choice to be stay-at-home dads or primary caregivers to their children.

In my own family, my sons are learning that being a man does not necessarily mean going outside of the house to work. Sometimes the moms do that and the dads stay at home to care for the kids.

The fathers I know are heavily integrated into family life and have close, loving relationships with their children. So the uncommon prayer today is for all of those incredible, dedicated, and caring dads...especially my children's dad!


Prayer on Father's Day

Brothers, I too have spent many sleepless hours worrying about money and insurance and minor-in-possession citations and speeding tickets and endless bouts of the flu which might mean some horrifying disease. I too have snarled and barked and growled and roared at my children.

I too have sometimes, usually in the shower, wondered what crimes I committed in a previous life to be afflicted so with rude and surly and vulgar and unappreciated progeny. Yet I too, brothers, know that they are why we are the luckiest men who ever lived; and I too have laughed so hard at their capers and antics that I had to lie down for a while; and I too have bathed and fed and rocked and coddled and wrestled and played and sung with them, and believed myself at those moments to be closer to heaven than any man ever, and known that this was indeed so, even more than it was and is in the delightful throes of romantic love.

So, brothers, a prayer for us today, as we are handed useless garish neckties and Weedwackers that will soon rust and die in the shed, and scrawled coupons for chores to be done in the future; for we are blessed, brothers, and we know it in our better moments, and we pray that today is composed of only those, for once. And so: amen.

Here's more information on why I chose this focus for the A to Z, and you can read all my 2015 A to Z posts here. I hope you enjoy the celebrations of the miracle and muddle of the ordinary! 

You can buy the book at Brian's favorite local bookstore, Broadway Books, at Powell's Books, or on Amazon. Brian's work is used with permission of Ave Maria Press.