December was an extremely busy month around the Greer household, as I’m sure it was for most everyone. I was somewhat worried that I wouldn’t get around to reading anything new to write about, what with all the chaos and so little free time.
That’s when it hit me that I had a book that I was working through right under my nose! I had been tasked with reading a book called Letters From Dad written by Greg Vaughn. Greg Vaughn is a two-time Emmy award-winning film producer and his work has been used in more than 40,000 schools and libraries. He also finds the time to work with over 85,000 churches. Wow! Talk about multi-tasking! Letters From Dad is more than just a book that I’ve been reading. A couple of months back my friend J.R. Harris told me about an exciting endeavor he was working on bringing to the Grace Lutheran church here in Lake Benton. This endeavor would require a group of dedicated men to meet once a month for approximately a five month period, and learn to share a whole new side of ourselves with our loved ones, with each other and with society in general. I eagerly signed up! This group would individually be reading the book Letters From Dad, and in a sense this book would be our study guide to the adventure that we had each committed ourselves to. I won’t say anything else about this group of wonderful men that I am privileged to be a part of, because our meetings are still ongoing and I don’t want to give away what it is that we are working on quite yet! Letters From Dad was born when author Greg Vaughn’s father passed away. As he was going through his garage he came upon his father’s rusty old fishing tackle box. This was the only item belonging to his father that Greg had inherited when his father passed. Angry with his father, with himself and even with God because this was all that he had to remember his dad by, Greg was about to toss the rusty old box in the garbage when the voice of God posed to Greg a question: “If you were to die today, what would your children hold in their hands that would let them know that they were the treasures of your life?” From that moment on, Greg became a man on a mission! He called up twelve friends of his who happened to also be fathers, and proposed the idea to them of a journey that they would take together! A journey where these men would come together and learn how to bless their children! One key component of this journey would be resurrecting the near-lost art of letter writing! In today’s world it seems that e-mail has taken over and has become so much more convenient than actually writing a letter to someone. Heck, look at how huge texting someone from your phone rather than actually calling them has gotten! I am a fan of the old school, and the prospect of getting back to the roots of writing appeals to me in a large way. I don’t consider myself a great writer, or even a good one for that matter, so the prospect of learning to write a “better letter”, if you will, holds such fascination for me. I will leave it at that as far as the content of the rest of Greg’s book. It’s not that the subject matter isn’t worthy or engrossing, because it is! I just feel that anyone interested in learning the outcome of Greg’s ideas and the direction that they take would do better by picking up Letters From Dad and finding out for themselves! I hope that possibly some men that happen to be reading this article discover a yearning in their heart to find out how to truly bless their loved ones, and their curiosity is peaked to the extent that they want to find out more about this book and it’s purpose.My plan is to donate my copy of Letters From Dad to the Lake Benton Library when I am done using it for reference, in the hopes that others may find it useful and benefit from it’s inspiring and positive message.
In the meantime, if anyone has any questions as to how to find out more about the Letters From Dad men’s group, please feel free to contact J.R. Harris or myself. We are still on our own paths and still learning this as we go along, but I know that we would be happy to share with you what we have discovered so far! Thanks everyone!
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