Father’s Day 2015 I was awakened by “Tell mother I’ll be there in answer to her prayer, this message, blessed Savior, to her bear! Tell mother I’ll be there, heaven’s joys with her to share; Yes tell my darling mother I’ll be there.”
Yes this was blasting out on radio — unbelievable! But it might be an error, so I thought. I waited patiently, then another Mother’s Day song — one that brings tears to the eye on Mother’s Day, “If I could hear my mother pray again; if I could hear her tender voice as then, so happy I should be, t’would mean so much to me if I could hear my mother pray again”.
Why the confusion? Messages delivered on the radio that day were all too often in left field. The image of fatherhood foreshadowed in God as father is all too often missed. Also, all too often and in many instances, hymns used at worship and other ceremonies are off base and do not celebrate fatherhood like its counterpart, on Mother’s Day. I congratulate Canon Harry Ward for the yeoman’s task in authoring hymns for the occasion. I find most of them most helpful, and there are others as well.
Allow me please to enumerate helpful hymns that really bring greater meaning to Father’s day celebrations: O father, precious father; Bahamian daddies, hear your call; Men of faith, men of hope; Faith of our fathers; O my father, how I thank you; Great father of all blessings; Happy the home when God is there; In the circle of each home; My father is a man of peace; My father is a person who is wonderful and grand; Oh give us homes built firm upon the Savior; Oh happy home where thou art loved; Oh father God we pray you; Onward Christian fathers; Rise up, oh men of God; Oh for a family altar; The family that worships God; When God made fathers.
Quite a smorgasbord, isn’t it? It’s spread out only to whet our appetites and hopefully be relevant.
Father’s Club: It is my desire to promote the establishment and bring into existence a father’s club as the counterpart to the Mother’s Club. The latter has been in existence and contributing to the upliftment of motherhood, and by extension the family, for many years now. Such can be a vehicle to promote masculinity in family life. I need men to join me in this crusade.
Interested? Register your interest by calling 397-1225 or 361-3800, leave your name and contact; in another month, I hope, we can have a meeting to discuss the way forward.
Let us congratulate the Mother’s Club for its sterling efforts among our mothers around the country. In fact the current mother of the year, hails from Mangrove Cay, Mrs. Catherine Nairn, and the immediate past Mother of the Year, Mrs. Clara McPhee hails from Tarpum Bay, Eleuthera. Well done Mother Freida Johnson and your small, but bold band of mothers of all ages, for keeping the fire burning in the honoring of motherhood in our land. It is this I seek to do as a counterpart for our fathers.
As The Bahamas gets its act together on the topic of national heroes, this intervention can be a forerunner. From this idea we begin to salute the national heroes of our land. Indeed as National Heroes Day dawns this year we can begin to think of concrete ways to have a system rooted and grounded in the upliftment of family life.
Happy birthday Bahamas as we celebrate our 42nd year of nationhood. We salute mothers and fathers who are role models and on whose shoulders we elevate the moral soul of this great nation. Forward, upward, onward together.
• Reverend Canon S. Sebastian Campbell is the rector at St. Gregory’s Anglican Church.
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