"Father's Day" CIY - Day 33

 ..."Human parents are fallible and can disfigure the face of fatherhood and motherhood. We ought, therefore, to recall that God transcends human distinctions between sexes. He is neither man nor woman, he is God."

"And if you had a rough relationship with your father, if you had a rough dad--someone who might have been not just distant, not just cruel, but maybe downright, you know, evil. You can see in that evil, the flip side. You have to almost see it like a negative image. For all the evil that one's own father might have brought into the world and brought into your life, God the Father is opposite that."

--Father Mike Schmitz (Catechism in a Year, Day 33)

It's strange that we are diving into this right now in the Catechism, because it's a subject that I've been giving a lot of thought to lately. In my previous blog ("What is Love"), I explained how I have been thinking about what Love is and how residual father wounds might be distorting the way I approach the heavenly Father. I really want to heal these wounds. However, maybe the wounds are actually healed and they're not holding me back at all, but I'm like a wolf with a wounded paw, and I've become so used to "licking" it, that I don't realize that it's actually healed, and I can run free on it. 

What Father Mike talked about today makes sense and I get it. My logical mind can definitely imagine what a healthy and loving relationship with a Father looks like. I have seen it and I have known people with amazing, loving fathers and have witnessed these relationships and their dynamics. I just have never experienced it myself, subjectively. It's kind of like trying to explain what sex feels like to someone who has never had sex. Or an orgasm. You can explain it until you're blue in the face, but it's just not going to cut it. It's something you have to experience to truly know. 

I have never had a man in my life with whom I have had a truly loving, non-sexual relationship. Besides the broken relationships with my father and grandfather, I don't have any brothers or nephews, no uncles I'm close to, and I've never had a close relationship with any male friends, professors or colleagues that wasn't sexual at some point, whether mutual or on one side or the other. So, I may not have a basis for comparison, but it doesn't mean that it's not possible for me to be receptive to a future relationship of the sort, or to cultivate such a relationship with God, the Father--to know that he loves me like a father now, even if I don't fully comprehend the nature of that love. He is giving it, anyway. Not just like the love of a father, but like a mother's love, too. "Jesus revealed that God is Father in an unheard-of sense." These are the things I love contemplating.

Now that I'm thinking of it, though... Perhaps God's love is also being revealed to me in my current job that God called me to. I do Recreational Therapy with elderly memory care residents in a rehabilitation facility. Many of them have Alzheimer's and varying degrees of cognitive ability. They may not always remember the conversations you have with them or what you do together, but they WILL remember how you make them FEEL. One of the higher-cognitive residents, Darrel, has really come to love me. He trusts me over anyone else and always tells me he loves me and that when he was gone for a week in another wing doing rehab, he came back only because of me. Lol He's adorable. I shouldn't overlook that because it's my job or because he's not cognitively all there. If anything, the love is purer and more unfiltered and innocent. That job has really brought me out of myself a lot. I was always pretty reserved and quiet in many of my jobs, but I really have to be enthusiastic and excited with the residents. I'm not self-conscious around them. I often have to sing or dance or perform in some way in front of them (which I guess my college acting classes come in handy here) or engage them in sensory/cognitive/spiritual/emotional/social activities. I also am very "touchy"--even though I'm used to touching people as a massage therapist, this is different, because there's constant contact and emotional nurturing. I often hold their hands and touch their backs. Handholding is something that would be inappropriate in my position as a massage therapist, but in this case is appropriate. I don't have any children of my own, but maybe God knows I am good for this position because I have so much love and nurturing to give and this allows me to give the kind of love I want to give. That I need to give. 

And there, hidden in plain sight, is the nature of God's love. I don't have to overthink whether or not I'm doing it right. I don't have to hem and haw about whether I'm feeling God's love correctly when I allow him to love me. I just need to relax and trust in him, and always say "Yes".