Fathers and Sons

From First Things
By Peter J. Leithart

In a 1967 lecture on the “cruciform character of history,” Dartmouth professor Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy—the anniversary of whose death is today—observed that the pace of contemporary life makes it easy for the young “to forget the greatest riddle of mankind,” that is, “the peace between fathers and sons, and grandsons.”

It is an ancient riddle. A good bit of the Old Testament depicts troubled transitions from generation to generation. Even Samuel, David, and Hezekiah had hellion children, and Isaac was nowhere near the model of faith that his father was. The depressing cycle of apostasy and judgment in Judges is a failure of inter-generational faithfulness, and the history of the Davidic dynasty is the same story. By the end of the Old Testament, the promise of blessing “for a thousand generations” begins to sound like a cruel joke.

But the story is not done. Malachi (4:6) promises that the Lord is coming to come to turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and children back to their fathers, a promise that begins in the ministry of John the Baptist (Luke 1:17). Jesus carries on John’s work, but in a paradoxical way. First Jesus brings a sword to divide between fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, and everyone else (Matt. 10:35; Luke 12:53). Since his sword is a sword of sacrifice, though, he divides and dismembers in order to transform all to smoke, which ascends as a pleasing aroma to his Father. Having passed through sword and fire, generational wounds will—so we are led to hope—be healed.

Yet, peace between generations remains chimerical. Rosenstock-Huessy saw inter-generational conflict at the heart of modern revolutions. He claimed, with typical hyperbolic flair, that the Russian Revolution was decided as early as 1863, when Turgenev published Fathers and Sons. If such catastrophes are to be avoided in the future, he argued, humanity will have to relearn some basic laws of history.

Speech is the medication for healing the wounds of time. When fathers speak, they throw a line into the future, and try to secure some influence on the world that will last after their death. When sons speak, they also seek to shape the future, but they will form a healthy future only if they also throw a line to the past, and try to retain and recover what their fathers did and taught. Mutual speech between fathers and sons, along with mutual and respectful hearing, intertwines into a coherent and peaceable present time.

One of the keys to faithful speech, Rosenstock-Huessy thought, is to recognize that we are all always living in several generations at once. Fathers don’t disappear as soon as they have sons or when their sons are grown; they stick around, sometimes much longer than sons wish. Fathers also have fathers, and can speak as fathers only by remembering they are also sons, not only representatives of the past but molders of the future. Sons fail as sons if they spend their energies twisting free of the constraints of the past while forgetting they are also fathers, responsible for their sons who will shape the future. A human being “can’t be the image of God if he serves the spirit of his own time.”

Ultimately, the riddle of intergenerational peace is a theological one. As fathers turn to sons and sons to fathers, they replicate on earth the cross-generational loyalty found in God. Within the Trinity, there is an older generation, so to speak, and a younger generation, the Father and Son, but these are in perfect harmony. The Father glorifies and honors his Son, and the Son does all He sees the Father doing, and renders perfect obedience to his Father. As Rosenstock-Huessy remarked, the Spirit is the generational bond, uniting Father and Son in an unbreakable, eternal bond of love. The Spirit’s outpouring at Pentecost fulfills the promise of Malachi, since the Holy Spirit is the One who transcends the “spirit of the age”—both the spirit of the fathers and the spirit of the sons—and unites them. As he wrote in The Christian Future, “Father and Son unfold the quality of being, by spreading it through two generations. And the Spirit, lest he be confused with the wit of the moment, is explicitly said to descend from the interaction of two generations, the Father and the Son.”

Rosenstock-Huessy died thirty-seven years ago today, when the world was a very different place. Fortunately, he did not serve the spirit of his age, and as a result he offers wisdom from which, decades later, we can still learn much.


Peter J. Leithart is Senior Fellow of Theology and Literature at New St. Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho, and pastor of Trinity Reformed Church in Moscow.

What I Learned from Dad

The following is a poignant reminder that parents are one's first and most important teachers, and the dinner table is the most effective place to change the world.

From The Globe and Mail (Canada)
By Daniel Goodwin

No matter how much he tries, no matter how gifted with empathy he is, no matter how naturally sensitive, a man can never fully understand or appreciate his father until he has become one himself.

Every son must have some regret about his father — at least it's a rare son that doesn't. The litany is well known: He wasn't around enough or wasn't affectionate enough. He was there but was a domineering tyrant. He didn't support your career choice. He was too focused on his own career. He left his wife (and more importantly, your mother). He didn't leave but should have.

When it comes to my father, my biggest regret, the only regret that I remember, is that he died too soon. He lived a good, long life, dying almost nine years ago at 83 of prostate cancer. But he was 54 when I was born, and he never got to meet my son and daughter.

My father, like all fathers (it must be in the paternal DNA), worked hard to pass down his wisdom to his progeny. At the time, I didn't appreciate it much. The fathers of my friends all seemed to have good, solid, practical talents, whether it was teaching their sons how to play hockey, fix cars or repair their homes.

I must admit that my father did teach me how to swim and ride a bike. We even threw the ball around a bit when I was a kid, but he didn't teach me many practical things.

I still remember turning 12 and hoping for something fun and useful for my birthday. Instead, my dad came home from work and proudly handed me a collection of Hemingway short stories, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Catcher in the Rye.

My father loved books. The walls of many rooms in our home were lined with bookshelves. History. Philosophy. Poetry. Politics. Novels. Biographies. Short Stories. Essays. Plays.

I still remember my 12-year-old sense of disappointment when my father handed me those books, but now, more than 25 years later, they're one of my favourite birthday presents.

My father was well read and had an immense vocabulary, but his daunting grasp of the English language came with a light touch. He'd use polysyllabic and obscure words in almost every conversation, but so gently that you could almost always figure out what he meant.

His erudition had, at least as far as his sons were concerned, a supremely annoying side. When my younger brother and I were growing up and would go to my father with a problem, there was never any simple commiseration, no fatherly "You'll do better next time."

Instead, every mundane childhood problem was addressed through recourse to a plot situation or character in something or other by Shakespeare, Dante, Homer, Hemingway or others from the Western canon: "Well, you're not alone in feeling that way. That's exactly how Odysseus felt when he couldn't get home for 10 years."

As I grew older, I came to realize that despite this annoying habit of relating almost every personal challenge to some plotline in a book, my father did offer some practical advice, advice that I remember every time I look at my son and daughter.

My dad excelled at enjoying himself, no matter where he was or what he was doing, or what was happening to him. One of his favourite phrases, the closest thing he had to a motto, was: "Enjoy yourself."

True to form, it operated for him on more than one level. Enjoy who you are, your talents, your thoughts, your foibles, your strengths, your challenges, your character.

In my more reductive moments, I sometimes think there are only two lessons in life: First you learn how to live and then you learn how to die.

If this is true, my father put his learning to the test. As he lay dying in a lot of pain, he relished the novelty of the experience. He had never died before and he was darn well going to enjoy every last minute of it.

As for living, my father taught me many lessons. Work at what you like and then it won't be work. Books and words are important. Do what's right, not what gives social or economic status or what others expect or what might be in fashion.

Tell the truth, not what you think others want to hear. Be curious, like a child. Take care of your family. Be there for your friends. Whatever you decide to do, do it as well as you can. Teaching is an honourable calling, whether it's your profession or not.

Don't complain. Be grateful. Accept praise and criticism with the same grace. And, most importantly, enjoy yourself.

When I see my young son and daughter laughing, telling jokes, rhyming off words and making puns, I think of you, Dad. Wherever you are, enjoy yourself.

Daniel Goodwin lives in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada.