Dad says the hardest message for him to preach each year is Mother's Day. Typically, churches talk about how wonderful all mothers are, all the great abd selflless things they "do for us," blah blah blah. But Dad didn't have that kind of mom. He loved his dad, but didn't have much of a relationship with his mom, from what I understand. So he has trouble preaching one of those "aren't moms great" messages.

Some people have trouble hearing them, too. Same for Father's Day. Not every father is great, every mother wonderful.

My pastor recognized that on both days this years, because he knows that in our congregation, there are people who don't look up to their parents. So he cut out the purely laudatory stuff, and instead preached more balanced, realistic messages. But there's still the issue of "honoring" your parents. The Bible doesn't say to honor your parents if.... It just says to do that. So it can be a trick for sons and daughters whose parents aren't worthy of honor, except that the Bible says they should receive it.

I don't need to work all that out, because I do have superb parents. Dad says that when he preaches about mothers, he pictures my mom, not his own mom. He gets his example of what a mother should be not from his own mother, but from his wife. That's pretty cool.

At Starbucks this morning, the lady at the cash register asked me if I had a good Father's Day yesterday. Before I could answer, she asked, "Are you a father?"

"I have two cats," I replied, "and they did get me things."

"It all counts," she told me. "It all counts."