As I write, Father’s Day is scarcely halfway and already I’ve been humbled three or four times by children (and their spouses), which is only fitting, since true fatherhood is and should be an exercise in humility from start to finish.  Their public and private tributes may be riddled with hagiography but, on this day, it is good that we dads should overlook lapses in truthsomeness.

(Yes, I know it isn’t a real word but this is how new words get created!)

One of my sons penned an essay on fatherhood today (well done, Jason) and in it posed these questions: “What makes a father who he is?” and “Is there a specific time, event or person who bestows the wisdom required to be successful as a dad?”  He goes on to make some great conclusions of his own, but it provides me with a springboard with which to provide answers of my own.

Biology makes any male a father. That part is easy. Too easy.

Turning young males into men who can be effective and successful fathers requires wisdom and example. This is where timing, events and role models come into play.

Truth is, there were times when I was far from a perfect father. There are no classes you can take to learn father skills or certifications and, if there were, today’s Social Justice Warriors would just screw them up like they do everything else. Fatherhood is mostly on-the-job training, and the key is “on-the-job.”  If you, like me when I was a very new father, spend too much time away from home and family in pursuit of life’s ambitions, your training suffers.  I was self-absorbed, intellectually arrogant and prideful. I did not know what I did not know.  In short, I was representative of a growing number of young men of my generation who now have been joined by even more clueless legions of fathers who either lacked good role models or rejected their efforts.

Such is life.

I do not blame my own father. He was a good role model. I was an independent, ungrateful little dumb-ass who couldn’t wait to leave home and make my mark on the world. If Dad had been a healthy man, he might’ve changed my life trajectory. He died at age 45 of congestive heart disease, likely fearing that he had failed to bring me up properly.

It was not pride of my own family that led me to become a better father, but the humility of a massive fall from grace that brought me to my knees – and to my senses.  I spent the last half of my life as a father with children in the home trying to atone for the first half.  That I more or less succeeded is a tribute to the depth of a desperate spirit of repentance and the wisdom I absorbed from the Eternal Father, who placed great examples in my path in the form of Church and Word.  A wife who instinctively realized her need for an improved husband and father helped, too. Good fathers require support systems.  It is difficult to go it alone.

Age and mellowing also helped. In the early days, I usually reacted too quickly as a parent. The old “shoot first, ask questions later” style of parenting.  I was no Ward Cleaver, sad to say.  The Eternal Father is patient with His children, infinite Justice tempered by equally infinite mercy.  Getting the balance right, for a human father, is an ongoing struggle, even when the children become adults.

There is no getting around this next truth: True fathers are called to be good role models. Whether you like it or not, your children will model your behavior. If you are rash, they will be rash. If you are impatient, they will display impatience. If you are greedy and self-absorbed, they will figure that’s what life requires. If you are absent, they will at first accept it as reality, and later condemn you for your absenteeism.  Worse, they may discover that life is better without your negative qualities, and they will condemn you (at least internally) for your negative influence upon them.

Conversely, if you are loving, patient, kind, giving and attentive, they will model your behavior. Oh, they will fail sometimes and disappoint you, but they eventually will master the learning curve of life. Don’t give up on them. Ever.

Here, for my sons and all who might be interested, are suggestions for good fatherhood:

1. Attend church with your children. A Swiss study in the 1990s found that a father’s role was the critical factor in whether his children would keep their faith intact as adults. A mother’s role was important. Two parents sharing their faith meant that nearly 75 of their children would continue to worship, a third all the time. But if only one parent could attend, there was a marked difference as to the result. If the father brought their children to church, the percentage who would stay faithful actually increased, as if in response to a mother’s “laxity.”  But if a mother alone brought her children to church without a father, only 2 percent would remain steadfast and 60 percent would abandon the faith.

I cannot explain this finding, only that in my observations, it is borne out repeatedly. Fathers are important.

2. Be humble.  Lord knows there is enough pride stalking this world. There is a reason pride is one of the seven deadly sins.  It gets out of control too quickly and too often. I don’t care what causes you believe in but hear me out: We do not need Pride Parades. We need Humility Parades. Especially in an age in which we have tremendous powers to wield over the world, economies, cultures and lifestyles.

Humility is the antidote to pride. It puts the evil one and his minions to flight. It pleases the Eternal Father when we embrace it.

3. Be a good listener. Let your children know they can come to you and discuss anything, and that you will hear them out fully, before rendering your thoughts.

4. Be a good story-teller.  Children of all ages want to know their family history, your history, and the anecdotes of your life. Learn to tell them well – don’t be a bore. And only tell them upon request. A little mystery is compelling.  It is okay to embellish for story-telling purposes, but only to a point, and that point is when truth is rendered false.

5. Be a good husband. Treat your wife with respect in all the ways that count. Do not denigrate her before your children, or in public. Defend her at all costs.

6. Be self-giving or, in another term, be sacrificial. Do things that are inconvenient out of love for your wife and children. Be quick to volunteer to do a hard thing for someone else as long as it will not take away a life lesson that needs to be faced.  Sacrifice is part of the Law of Love that is inescapable for a Child of God. We die to ourselves in order to live for others and, in return, find that we lose nothing of value. We gain love by giving love.

7. Be joyful. Have a sense of humor. It is a spiritual thing. It will help you through many a personal or family crisis and will set an example of grace under pressure that your children will follow. Eventually. No one wants to be around a sour-puss, cynic or hate-monger.  Smile. I love the Spanish term for smile: “Sonrisa.”  Like a sun rise! God causes the sun to rise on the just and the unjust every day.  Likewise, we need to smile on our children, when they are good and when they are lacking in goodness, every day.

8. Be the priest in your domestic church. You are the pater filliis, the father of children. You set the tone and you start in the home. Then you take it into the world.

9. Seek God’s help in prayer and in Word, when the answers to “father questions” elude you. Seek out human guidance carefully, using only those with a proven track record of success.

10. Give thanks for all your successes and failures. Remember that you will learn more from a failure than a success, though it may not seem so at the time. Divine Providence includes challenges, obstacles and hardships to train us for the journey and our ultimate destiny. Embrace your little cross.

Thank you to all my children and to all who helped me on this journey to becoming a better father.

Happy Father’s Day.

Was that ever fast!

My new novel, Deadly Inheritance, is already on sale at Amazon, as well as through the website of the publisher, Outskirts Press.  If you find it elsewhere, please let me know.

It’s available in paperback, hard-cover and digital edition, as well as a budget-friendly pdf if you like to read on your hand-held or whatever.

I would describe the book as a modern Western mystery – fiction, of course – with a strong faith element and a romance. Somewhat complicated, I suppose, but then so is life. Here’s the synopsis on the book jacket:

Two years after surviving an IED attack that killed the rest of his squad in Afghanistan, Josh Davenport is wasting away in Fort Smith, Arkansas. He keeps a tight rein on his emotions and his dwindling finances. Though physical wounds have healed, his mental scars and the senseless traffic death of his parents left him reclusive and disillusioned, shunning old friends and refusing to make new ones. Angry at a God he doesn’t quite believe in, he seeks no miracles and expects nothing ahead but disappointment. He needs a change, but his prospects are dim. When a certified notice arrives that he has inherited property in Wyoming from a rancher he has never met, he breaks out of his comfort zone and undertakes the long drive to Lone Creek, an old mining town on its last legs. Within hours, his life is threatened, thieves try to steal his truck, and a colorful old lawyer warns that he might be in line to inherit a fortune – if he fulfills the conditions of the will and thwarts the schemes of a rich coal baron. A truck stop waitress and a cowboy priest offer aid and comfort, but also complications, as Josh faces growing threats and the question: What good is wealth if you’re dead? Deadly Inheritance is a mystery that blends themes of the Old West, new technology, romance, and a young man’s encounter with a legacy of faith that alters his outlook on life and death.

I think it’s a good read. I hope you will agree.

• David Jones

Personally, at least, it was a week of mostly good news.

Deadly Inheritance is now past all proof-reading and review stages, for both hardback and paperback versions, and is going to print. I don’t have any hard and fast numbers, but I suspect it will be available for purchase very soon. I was contacted Saturday morning to make the last adjustments, if necessary (there were none), and thus I postponed my fence project for half a day.

Fence project, you ask?

Yeah. After spending more than I feared on a six-foot chain link enclosure for our new dogs, Trip and Trigger, I have now had to reinforce the enclosure with wood.  The dogs insisted upon it. We adopted the dogs from the Jenks, Okla., animal shelter: two Siberian Huskies, fairly young. I brought them home last Monday.  On Tuesday morning, I opened the back door to find them out of the enclosure, awaiting me and, I suppose, breakfast. The younger dog had worried the wire fence where it attached to the bottom of the gate, created a hole just large enough, and there you have it. The amazing thing is that they did not leave for parts unknown but were content to stay around the house.

Since Tuesday morning I have had them boarded in a nearby kennel until I could make improvements. Some of it took place on Thursday, most of it yesterday, and I finished the job this afternoon after my morning church duties. I’ll bring them home tomorrow.

In the meantime, I am sore, bloodied and fatigued from working on the fence. Bloodied only because I cut myself on various pieces of wood screws and wire, sore and fatigued because there was a great deal of crawling around on cold ground, and a lot of getting up and down. Not used to it.

But it’s a good fatigue because the job looks good, seems pretty secure, and the exercise is useful. (I’m in the middle of what looks to be a successful weight loss effort.)

In other news, I’m working on a second novel and, in the middle of it, a short story that I am compelled to write while the plot line is burning in my mind. I’m thinking it may anchor a collection of short stories I’ve been sketching.

I haven’t the heart at the moment to discuss what a garbage week it was for the nation. You can get plenty of that reaction elsewhere. I prescribe prayer and patience, no matter what you read, hear or view in the mainstream media or on social media, plus a plea to be as objective as you can and review all possible evidence before making judgments.

Later.

I created this blog site over a year ago in anticipation of the time that I would need it. The time, it seems, is now.

After several months of writing, re-writing, editing, proof-reading and listening to the feedback of a few brave friends, my first real novel is about to be published. I’ve written a lot of words in my life, mostly as a newspaper reporter and editor. Even won a couple of awards. (A full-page feature, with photos, of mud-wrestling in Tulsa was deemed one of the outstanding feature articles for that particular year. Sadly, I forget which year it was.)

Writing a novel is different. It takes patience and persistence. There also comes a point in the creative process where the story takes possession of the writer. Or at least that was my experience. The characters became real human beings. As I wrote, I found that it was difficult to allow them to do anything out of character, even when it was necessary for the plot to move forward. This was a good thing, because my characters had to struggle with their personal foibles and inconsistencies, just as all humans should.

At any rate, I will soon announce the release of “Deadly Inheritance”, a modern western/mystery of about 471 pages, to be available in hardback, paperback and electronic editions. The publisher is Outskirts Press of Denver, Colo. There will be more details to come.

A belated Happy New Year and a joyful 11^th day of Christmas to all.

– David Jones

There are several versions of the cautionary tale of the “tender woman” and the “snake.” Sometimes it’s a young boy who is trying to prove himself in the wilderness. One version has a turtle giving a ride across a river to a large scorpion.  The story goes something like this: A young Indian boy is on his Vision Quest.

During this he will prove his prowess at survival. Perhaps he will find his spirit guide  as well.  By journey’s end, he returns to the tribe no longer a boy, but a man.  During his journey, he nearly dies of thirst, but he encounters a rattlesnake who claims to be dying as well.  The snake tells the boy he knows where there is water and food, but will need to be carried in order to show the way.  The boy is naturally reluctant to agree, but since the snake has solemnly promised that he will not bite, the boy’s hunger and thirst overcomes his sense of danger. Thus the unlikely pair set out to a mountain in the distance. The snake keeps his promise, and they arrive at a beautiful valley where there is a cool, refreshing spring and plenty of game for the boy to hunt and eat.  That night, in celebration, the boy dances around his campfire in joy for having survived the worst part of his trek and for having found his spirit guide (the rattlesnake).  The snake, also rejuvenated, joins the dance. They whirl faster and faster, the boy singing a song of triumph, the snake weaving and bobbing its head to the quiet rhythm of moccasioned feet.

Suddenly, with no warning, the snake leaps, burying his fangs deep in the young boy’s neck.  The boy falls to the side of the fire, exhausted and horrified, for he knows that there is nothing that he can do to remove the venom. “Why?” he cries out to the snake. “I carried you to water and food. I helped you survive.  You promised you would not hurt me! Now I am going to die.”

The snake grins and declares, “You knew damn well I was a snake before you picked me up.”

That is the way each version of the story ends. The moral: Sooner or later everyone and everything acts according to its nature.  The nature of the snake, or scorpion, is to strike.  Befriend them at your peril.

Perhaps Pope Francis never heard a version of this story.  He has oft befriended an older gentlemen named Eugenio Scalfari, a co-founder of the left-wing Italian newspaper, La Republicca.  They meet occasionally and talk, and like the sun rising in the East, there appears a by-lined article in which the pope is quoted saying something not just controversial, but heretical.  It happened again during Holy Week when an article had Pope Francis telling Scalfari that, while Heaven exists for those who accept salvation, Hell does not exist.  In fact, he was quoted, those who are not saved will simply cease to exist.

How convenient for Signori Scalfari, since non-existence is what atheists expect at the time of death. Had Pope Francis actually said such a thing, it would be heresy.  Since the pope has on several occasions discussed the dangers of Hell, we can safely assume that Scalfari, who takes no notes in his interviews, reinterpreted their conversation to reflect at least 50 percent of his belief (he believes good people also cease to exist when they die).  Scalfari is no theologian, but he knows how to sell newspapers.

The obvious question is why Pope Francis grants “interviews” to this man who has bit him not once, but at least three times in recent years.  Each time the secular world has most definitely noticed. This time it obscured the pope’s own message and ministry during Holy Week.  At a time when Christians should be proclaiming the Good News of the Resurrection, we are having to answer silly Facebook and Twitter posts and listen to the laughter of those who are not friends of the Church.

Yes, it will all die down, but it will not completely go away. For those of us involved in ministry and teaching, it is one more piece of noise with which we will have to contend.  I do not mind contending – after all, that’s what we are called to do.  I am less than overjoyed that this noise comes from upstairs, so to speak.  I find it hard to imagine St. Pope John Paul II ever falling into this trap, or Pope Emeritus Benedict, so I guess what I am really saying is that I’m spoiled.  Most of my adult life we had popes that were media savvy, and less apt to take risks with their words.

Yet I cannot throw stones. (Plenty of others are eager to do so, sadly.)  How many times have my own clumsy words come back to haunt me!  Oh, how many hurt feelings have I engendered while trying to be clever, or incisive!  And then there are those times when I said something hurtful on purpose, in pride or anger or to justify my standing.  If I am brutally honest, I can see something similar happening to me as happened with the pope.  The difference is that the world would not know of it, or mock it.

But someone would, and I suppose the object lesson to be taken is to be careful, for even the loss of one human soul who rejects the teachings of Christ is a tragedy, an incalculable one.  For all of us are loved infinitely by the Eternal, and He desires the salvation of each of us so much that He sent His Son to suffer and die so that we might have the gift of Eternal Life.

Christ’s teaching has not changed, nor will it. Scripture and nearly 2,000 years of tradition affirms that there is a place of wailing and gnashing of teeth, where the flame never quenches and the worm never dies.  Jesus spoke of Hell eloquently and often.  Saints and sinners alike have been given mystical glimpses of the infernal regions and have written of their visions.  Just as Colton Burpo’s story, “Heaven is For Real” captivated millions a few years ago, so too should the depictions and warnings of eternal punishment guide our thoughts and conduct today. Hell is for real, too.

I’ve experienced moments in life when it was tempting to yearn for non-existence.  That is but another of the Evil One’s seductions.  It is a dangerous belief, especially for those who are contemplating suicide, for the supernatural reality is that there are but two ultimate destinations, and this present reality merely a proving ground, a temporal place where we bear our crosses as patiently as each is able, and learn to be overcomers.

It is worth repeating the Fatima prayer: “O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, and save us from the fires of Hell. Lead all souls to heaven, especially those in most need of your mercy.”

Amen.