We have just celebrated the greatest event in human history, the birth of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ split time in two in more ways than one. BC and AD and have been a measure of history for almost two thousand years. We also have the old and new Testaments, not to mention the fact that in ancient antiquity (BC), charitable organisations did not exist. It was through the early followers of Christ that charities were formed. The overwhelming majority of charitable organisations in existence today are either Christ-based or Christ-inspired. Dads4Kids is both of these.
When the Dads4Kids Fatherhood Foundation helped draft The 12pt Plan, to turn the tide of fatherlessness in Australia, there was one phrase in the preamble that sums up the current situation, ‘Fatherlessness is both a natural and spiritual problem’. The preamble goes on to say, ‘It needs synergistic partnerships that should involve government and church . . . faith based and non-faith based organisations working together to strengthen and support Australian fathers’. What’s all this mumbo jumbo Warwick? How can you prove fatherlessness is a spiritual condition?
Well, let us look at a story about Steve Jobs the founder of Apple. In 1978, before he made a name for himself as the face of innovative technology, Steve Jobs’ high school girlfriend, Chris-Ann Brennan, became pregnant. After Brennan gave birth to her daughter, Lisa Nicole Brennan-Jobs, Steve Jobs denied paternity for two years, claiming he was infertile until a paternity test proved otherwise. The below quote is from a story in the Daily Mail that interviewed his former girlfriend..
In 1980, after Steve started sending $500 monthly automatic transfers to my account, he came over to my house out of the blue to speak to Lisa, who was not yet three.
He sat on the floor with us and then proudly announced to Lisa: ‘I am your father.’ It was like some kind of Darth Vader moment.
Then he waited for a response with a big, slightly fake smile on his face. I knew he was trying to do the right thing, but Lisa had no idea what he was saying. He literally said: ‘I am one of the most important persons of your life’.
I looked at Lisa and then Steve and then Lisa again. Suddenly, I understood that the person I was longing to save the situation didn’t have the basics of emotional intelligence, much less a real conscience. He was somehow just blank and theoretical.
I felt unspeakably heartbroken as Lisa, mute and shy, took him in with her soft eyes. She had no idea who this Mr Glad Rags was. Eventually, after not getting the applause he had somehow expected, he asked if we could go outside. Steve never came by again.
There are many men who, in a backward kind of logic, seem to care only for what they pay for and invest in. As Steve had so little invested, he did not know to care…
I’ve truly hated Steve at times, but never for very long. Sharing a daughter with him has forced me to think about things more deeply. Steve the saint, the alien, the despot, the punishing masculine god, the liar, the obsessed narcissist, the cult hero, the ID of the iEverything, the genius and the motherless boy.
It is only because of Lisa that I have felt obligated to comprehend the many broken shards of Steve’s glittering brilliance.
For all the sparkling, spacious beauty of the Apple Stores, Steve was a haunted house whose brokenness was managed and orchestrated by Apple’s PR team in an extremely masterful way.
If ever there was a story that demonstrated the need for ‘sexual integrity’ this has to be it.
Each of us is built inside with a desire to connect with our true father or mother. The sexual act is also a spiritual act because only this act can create a new human spirit. The responsibility for this creative power is immense and must be guarded wisely. The ability to be a father or a mother is a spiritual ability and in many ways a spiritual service for humankind. William James, the great American psychologist says, ‘We are not humans having a spiritual experience but spirits having a human experience’. Our failure to acknowledge this is the root cause of all our problems.
What has this got to do with Christmas celebrations? Jesus came to point the way back to the Father. Jesus was the only son of our father in heaven. There was no need for a DNA test because every molecule in the body of Christ told the story. No man has ever loved greater than Jesus. The testimony of His coming as a baby and His death on the cross is a witness to this fact.
The simple truth is that Jesus was the God-man, the very epitome of love because God is love. The DNA of Jesus body was the DNA of love. Jesus words to fathers like you and I still ring out across the centuries, “If you then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him”.
Fatherlessness is both a spiritual and natural problem. It is only by reconnecting with our Father in heaven through the DNA of love given to us through the Son, that we can break the spiritual problem of fatherlessness that displays itself at every level of the human condition.
Lovework
Explain to your children the Christmas story and the Easter story and then tell them what these stories mean to you. We all need to pass on the Love DNA to our children.
Yours for the Love DNA
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