That was the day that was.

To slightly corrupt a line from Alan Wicker.

Fathers day is my most un-favourite of days of the year. I can never lose the sense of failure as a father, of having lost a child, of feeling I've not done as well as I should with our son, and these days starting to feel old, tired and futile. God has been gracious to me, giving us children that we didn't raise, and one of the high points of the day was a text from one of our God daughters to wish me a happy fathers day.

My friend Randall posted an amazing picture of 4 generations of men in his family, each of whom led the people of God in their own generation and illustrating the heritage that he walks in. This is interesting for me, because the Austrian side I most naturally identify with had no such Christian heritage, yet the English sides have a strong line of leaders and preachers in the church, and it seems I have inherited some of that after all through my mum. My English grandfather would speak at a number of different churches covering quite a wide area, but by the time I might have known him as an adult he'd buried 2 wives and was not at all the person he had been. My own father has been dead more than 20 years too, and memories of him are more like photographs than videos these days.

It's a very mixed time emotionally, and mostly either neutral or not good. Right, maudlin time over for another year - on with something else.