The Power of Fathers to Bestow Identity

Bob Greene: I was thinking about a quote from Father Michael Scanlon, who's now deceased. He said that when we ask people to relate to God the father, we run square against their image of fatherhood because of their experience with a father. Greene: When we say, just surrender to the father, and they had an abusive, controlling father, then surrender feels like being abused. If you have a father who wasn't present, it's just like everything's blank, you know, where is he? Yeah, he's not here. How do I relate to him being here?