Seven Sundays of St Joseph: Three

There’s a lovely folk custom of remembering the seven Sundays before the Feast of St Joseph on March 19th. So, a piece of art and a bit about fatherhood for you to contemplate.

Kim Stafford writes about a type of failure in a vignette about his daughter. He says
that one day, he brought his daughter to a public fountain on a hot day and let her walk
along its narrow edge. Just as she rounds a corner, she slips and falls in.

But a mother near her grabbed her, and hoisted her out, and she came panting to me across the hot pavement. Her dress left a trail of wet, her hair streamed down, and her face was bright.

She stood stubby tall before me. “When I was falling dad, I heard my little voice. But it didn’t say ‘Be afraid’ – it said, ‘Have fun falling.’” Her eyebrows went up, and her mouth clamped into a line of
conviction.

When I live my life now, when I write, when I enter a hard time, in an uncertain way, I want my little voice saying, “Have fun falling.”

Have fun tumbling into the changes that rain and root and every pair of wings has to carry out
– a secret the wind and lightning and sorrow, and love keep making plain.

By falling you find the bottom, and without that, no joy.