Happy Father’s Day. This is from my book, Staying ‘Happy Healthy & Hot. For a free download…just click here.
I’m sitting here in my big, comfortable, black-leather poppa
chair in the living room looking at a picture of my dad sitting in
his big, comfortable, poppa chair in his living room a long time ago.
He was the only hero I ever had. And that’s too bad, because you
don’t really get to know the people who are your heroes. You know
what they did. But you don’t really know all the reasons why they
did the things they did or how they felt about doing them.
We know that the first order George Washington gave his men
when they crossed the Delaware that Christmas night in 1776 was
“Burn the boats.” My history book said that was so his men had
no choice but to beat the Hessians at Trenton, because they had
no boats to retreat to the other side of the river. But I wonder if he
was also thinking, “Burning the damn boats will give these poor,
freezing, barefoot, starving guys a few minutes of warmth before
they go to lay down their lives for this thing we believe in.”
We learn about Washington the hero—the gutsy, commanding
guy who used his head and won our war. But I always wondered
about Washington the man, the friend. How did he feel, watching
his troops—a bunch of other guys, some of them his friends—on
that frozen, awful night as they were getting ready to die to keep
freedom warm and alive in their hearts and ours.
I wonder about Christ like that sometimes, too. Not the miracle
worker, the supernatural Son of God, the second person of the Holy
Trinity. I have kids, so I wonder about Christ as a baby, born in an
animal’s stable—the kid who must have been terrified by frequent
nightmares of a cross and thorns and bloody nails. And how about
the young man? He had disciples and followers. But was there some
other guy he could trust to swap jokes with? And what was he feeling
when a beautiful woman smiled at him? I wish I knew.