The Hands of Fathers

Dad with Rob and Maxwell

The past week was great.  Even though it was filled with grading midterms (yuck!) I had a great opportunity to prepare and teach seminary lessons on Helaman 1-2 and Helaman 5, as well as a gospel doctrine lesson on Abraham 1 and Genesis 15-17, and 21-22.  There is something unique about teaching that I love.  You learn a subject, and particularly the gospel, in a way that you can't replicate in any other manner by teaching it.  I noticed this during the summer when I was teaching at BYU.  The fact that 38 students in that classroom were expecting me to be an expert and to have some answers made to learn more quickly than I otherwise might have learned.  It made me study harder and ask better questions.  The opportunity to teach, more than anything, is the opportunity to be taught from on high.  It is a blessing.

I've been blessed to have examples of many superb teachers in my life.  Each of my mentors throughout my undergraduate and graduate degrees has been a gifted teacher. I've spent hours sitting captivated as men like Robert Millet and Terry Warner have taught me.  I've been blessed with wonderful bishops and stake presidents who have taught me.  In their own ways, each of my grandparents was a superb teacher.  My Grandpa Dowdle, who died 29 years ago today, was an English teacher, while my Grandma Dowdle taught elementary school.  My Mom, my sister Stephanie, and my sister Jeni have each been teachers by profession.  And then there is my Dad, a master teacher and principal by profession.  There aren't many lessons I remember vividly after two decades, but I remember lessons he taught me.

I thought about one of these lessons today as I took the sacrament.  When I was a boy, I remember being quite restless when it came to sacrament meeting.  With two parents who were anxious to teach their children reverence and respect, I'm sure this was a challenge.  But my Dad had a way of teaching me during the sacrament that I have always remembered.  As I normally sat next to him when I was a boy, he would lean over and whisper in my ear while the sacrament was being passed.  He would tell me about how the Savior had died for me, and he would point out the places in my hands and wrist where the soldiers had driven nails through the body of the Savior at Golgotha.  He would tell me about how he loved the Savior and how the sacrament reminded us of Him and what He had done for us.  I don't remember anything that any speaker ever said in any of those meetings, but I remember that.

In the most critical moments of their lives, Enos and Alma the Younger both remembered the words and testimonies of their fathers about the Savior.  At a crossroads when it was possible to give up, Nephi and Lehi remembered the words of their father Helaman, as set out to preach the gospel with power amongst both Nephites and Lamanites.  At a time when young Joseph Smith needed someone to believe him, Moroni instructed him to "go to [his] father and tell him of the vision and commandments which [he] had received" (JS-H 1:50), and there he found a worthy confidant who believed him and encouraged him in his ministry.  The not yet spiritually mature Gordon B. Hinckley found faith and the ability to press forward in a letter from his believing father.  And, in the most challenging, painful, and sacred event of human history, our Savior "sought Him whom He had always sought—His Father. 'Abba' (Mark 14:36) He cried, 'Papa,' or from the lips of a younger child, 'Daddy'" (Jeffrey R. Holland, "The Hands of Fathers").  With a knowledge of His Father's love and His Father's plan, and with desires for His Father's glory, the Savior was able to endure and secure the blessings of His Father's children who were willing to believe and obey Him.

In a world where fatherhood is sometimes deemed optional, the Lord declares that "great things [are] required at the hand[s] of . . . fathers" (D&C 29:48).  I know that many have not been as blessed as I have been, but I take great joy in the fact that I have been blessed with a father who takes this calling seriously.  I am blessed with a father who is a patriarch in very deed.  I am grateful beyond measure for him.

Happy birthday Dad!  I love you!

Brett