Father's Day

I found myself day dreaming in church yesterday. It was Father’s Day, so I was imagining what it would be like to spend a morning with my Father who is in heaven. But in my day dream, He wasn’t in heaven. As it so happens, he was with me on a yacht in the Caribbean.

When I was a teenager, just about the only way I could impress the girls was by executing bombs from the 5m diving board at Mt Pleasant swimming pool. Desperate – I know. But though lacking in physique, flawless technique enabled me to convert a meagre 58 kilos of body weight into a thundering mushroom cloud of water that would drench anyone sunbathing within a 10m radius of the pool.

Sadly, my efforts to impress never failed to produce underwhelming results. Nowadays, however, I no longer need to impress the girls. This is a good thing because my physique has hardly changed since I was 17. I have put on a few more kilos but these seem to be concentrated in a hot water bottle shaped bulge just above my belt. Nevertheless, I have never lost the joy of doing a good bomb and still look for any opportunity to impress others with my rare talent.

Perhaps then, it will come as no surprise to hear that I decided to do a bomb off the side of the yacht.

“Hey Dad, watch this!” I shouted.

When I finally surfaced, water was still splashing onto the surface of the sea and a fine spray was drifting off towards some nearby palm trees. Oh yes! I looked up for approval.

“Brilliant, Ian! Now it’s my turn... woohooo!”

It’s hard to describe what happened next, but it suffices to say that my heavenly Father’s bomb emptied the entire Atlantic Ocean, let alone the Caribbean Sea.

“O yes, ahaaa!” He shouted. “What do you think of that one?” And He roared with laughter. At that point, my Dad must have seen the expression on my face because He added quickly, “Don’t worry; I’ll put it all back”. And He did.

I leave you to make of this what you will. As for me, in the words of John Wesley, “my heart was strangely warmed”, and I found myself longing for greater intimacy with my heavenly Father.

Cheers for now - Ian