On Being a Father

A few years ago, a grateful son wrote about his father,

A dad have I who is not perfect, never played for Yankees strong,

Feats and features cannot measure what it takes to be a man.

Fosbury’s bar will yet be raised by hopefuls and by champions

Yet ‘tis Redmond’s race that I remember

The father running to the son.

Redmond, of course was Derek Redmond, Britain’s record-holder in the 400-meter sprint. In the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, he was favored to win gold. But half-way through his semi-final race
Redmond snapped his hamstring and collapsed to the ground as the competition raced past him.

For Such a Time as This

When Queen Esther got the news she was stunned. An edict of genocide against your race will do that. A nation-wide holocaust was scheduled, but she was powerless to do anything about it. Or so she thought.

She was a woman in a man’s world, a world with strict laws against interfering with government policies. She may have been called Queen, but barging into the imperial court was punishable by death. Asking questions about tyranny was equally off-limits. The women of the harem of the court of King Ahasuerus were pretty playthings in this no-nonsense political world. And the King had not called to play with her for over a month.

Like many of us, the first thing Esther saw in this crisis was her own powerlessness.