Good, Loving, and Limited

It has always seemed that Genesis was not just a book of beginnings, but a book about family relationships.  More specifically, it has seemed like a book to fathers about how not to do it.  The Genesis fathers are not exactly the best role models.  But, it is ok.  Few of us had perfect parents and even fewer of us go around bragging about how perfect we were as parents.  When Henri Nouwen wrote "The Return of the Prodigal Son"  he shared in a painfully transparent way the emotional baggage he carried out of his home into adulthood.     

In the section on the Elder Son, he writes about a near fatal accident which caused him to honest up about his relationship with his father. As the eldest child he always felt that his younger siblings were loved more by his father and he carried a suitcase full of resentment through his days. When his father arrived at the hospital, he told him of his life long struggle.  And then he wrote such an important word for parents and children. "The return to the 'Father from whom all fatherhood takes its name,' allows me to let my Dad be no less than the good, loving, but limited human being he is..."  

As I read those confessional word of Nouwen, I thought they conveyed an important word for all who remember our upbringing.  Like the Genesis characters who are bared to the bone for us to see in that book of beginnings, so are we all as parents.  We were imperfect at best, but hopefully our love and goodness shines on the scars we may have inadvertently left on our children.