Article June 14, 1999 ISSUE

WHERE IS MY FATHER?

Don G. Soule

I asked myself that question many times after my dad passed away. I went through periods of sadness, loss, and bitterness over the missed opportunities to make his life a little more pleasant. In an effort to overcome these feelings, I reviewed what I had learned from Christian Science about fatherhood. This sentence from the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health, stood out to me: "Father-Mother is the name for Deity, which indicates His tender relationship to His spiritual creation" (p. 332). The phrase "tender relationship" set me thinking.

If my father was indeed the child of God, as we all are, I could in no way be separate from him. He was gone to the material senses, but to spiritual sense he had never left. I determined to focus more and more on the spiritual qualities that I remembered my father expressing. Through an appreciation of these qualities, which are eternal, I learned to recapture and enjoy each of the attributes that had made him father to me. This finally broke the bonds of mourning.

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