Happy Birthday Dan

Fond wishes for a happy birthday go out to my son Dan who turns 20 today. It's hard to believe he's already 20, and that his brothers Alex and Jesse are 21 and 24, respectively. One of the greatest joys in my life is to see the three of them together, how much they love each other and enjoy each other's company. This scenario was pretty hard to imagine, say, 15 years ago when they were pummeling the daylights out of each other. But I guess most brothers grow out of that kind of competition -- even mine did. ;-)

Joseph, the subject of today's Old Testament reading, was not so lucky. Because his father had shown special favor for Joseph, his brothers became jealous and plotted to kill him. Lacking the nerve to murder their own flesh and blood, they threw him in a cistern. Then after enjoying a nice lunch together and admiring their handiwork, they decided they could turn a profit by selling him to a passing caravan of Ishmaelites. Good thing there were no Ishmaelite caravans passing by when my boys were younger...but I digress.

As we all know from Sunday School, religion class, or vacation Bible school, through God's favor Joseph went on to become the Pharaoh's right-hand-man. Through his position of power he then showed his brothers incredible mercy and forgiveness when they were most vulnerable.

In one sense, Israel's special love for Joseph was almost Joseph's undoing, as it aroused jealousy in his brothers. Probably at one time or another every child deals with the perceived favoritism of one or both parents. Likewise parents (including me) agonize about even the perception of favoritism among their children.

We raise our children for a long time, and the relationships among all the family members are in a constant state of flux. In my relationships with my sons, my connections to each are different in terms of interests, experiences we've shared, and all the emotions that go with them. The strength, quality, and intensity of each relationship changes over time, as it does between every pair of humans. And in Israel's defense, it could be that at the time today's story unfolds, his relationship with Joseph was at a particularly intense and positive stage. Maybe in time, say if Joseph had gone out with his friends and wrecked the family chariot, the nature of the relationship might have changed, but we'll never know.

My relationship with Dan reached a particularly intense and positive stage this time last year when we traveled to Honduras together on a Habitat build trip. We worked together, ate together, roomed together, and shared our lives with each other at a deeper level than we had before. I've had similar, but not the same, experiences with Alex and Jesse, and I hope to again with each of them. But Honduras last year was special for Dan and I.

And as it turned out, Dan's birthday fell right in the middle of the trip. I know he had accepted the fact that he wouldn't be celebrating a "normal" birthday, but I don't know what, if anything he expected. We arranged to have dinner that night at Weekend's Pizza in Santa Rosa, which is an oddly excellent pizza joint in Santa Rosa de Copan -- you just don't expect great pizza in Honduras, OK? Margaret Rubiera, God bless her, arranged to have a surprise birthday cake -- Tres Leches cake -- brought out after dinner with candles and the whole thing. What a great surprise it was, especially when it turned out the lady who served the cake was a Habitat homeowner we had visited the previous year.

Dan, I don't see any surprise Tres Leches cake in your future, but I hope you have a wonderful 20th birthday just the same!

Love,

Dad