Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back:
Darth Vader: If you only knew the power of the Dark Side. Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.
Luke: He told me enough. He told me you killed him.
Darth Vader: No. I am your father.
Luke: No. That’s not true. That’s impossible.
Darth Vader: Search your feelings you know it to be true.
Luke: Nooooo. Nooooo.
Into the Woods by Stephen Sondheim
(Baker) No more ridlles, no more jests.
No more curses you can’t undo
left by fathers you never knew
No more quests!
No more feelings.
Time to shut the door.
Just . . . no more.
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
Lady Bracknell: To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose both looks like carelessness.
I’ve noticed a common theme in several things we’ve watched lately from the movie What a Girl Wants to the musical production Into the Woods that Eldest Daughter performed in this weekend: fathers and sons (or sometimes daughters) losing each other. All the sons can’t seem to find their real fathers. All the fathers seem to have lost or deserted their sons. I may be reading too much into all of this, but maybe we’re all looking for our true Father.
1 John 3:1
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
Amen!
I haven’t read many children’s books in recent years, but when I was 30 years ago, I noticed how many had story lines where parents didn’t appear at all, or you only saw their shoes, or they were speaking from outside the pictures. But you make a good observation about our real Father, one our pastors usually make on Father’s Day Sunday to comfort those who had fathers who weren’t there.
I really enjoy your blog.