My son is the editor of Tabletalk. Each month he gives me a sheet of written instructions for my articles. He is a tough taskmaster, not unlike Pharaoh, who is loathe to give me straw for my quota of bricks. This month's instructions included the comment: "I'd hate to have to write on the frustrations of having your father work for you reluctantly. You need to be more zealous for these articles than I ever was about tending your yard."

The yard reference was provoked by a comment I made to him recently. My son now owns his own home. I noticed that he is inordinately fussy, indeed punctilious, about the care he gives in manicuring his yard. I said to him, "Why didn't you give this kind of tender-loving-care to my yard when you used to cut the grass as a boy? I guess things change when you are tending your own yard rather than someone else's. It must be pride of ownership." So now it's turnabout and fair play.

I write my articles and books in the men's locker room where I play golf. I have four lockers, one for my golf gear and three for my books. It is nice to have a not-so-quiet place where I have a constant supply of iced tea and a huge table to spread out my stuff and work. I am deaf to the rowdy by-play that goes on around me, even though it is often directed at me.

I live in two different worlds, the world of church and kingdom, and the secular world that finds its microcosm in the men's locker room. It is an exercise in contrast, yet one in which I find heartening intrusions of grace wherein the distinctions between sacred and profane are sometimes blurred.

I love the guys who are the denizens of the locker room. They are men in every sense of the word, and for them this place is their sanctuary. There is "Big Al" with his ponytail, gruff voice, and perpetual twinkle in his eye; "Rifle" the Polish golfer who endures endless ethnic jokes; "Fultie" the South African "bull" who is a regular on the pga Tour; "The Buck" (a.k.a. "Wild Bill," the former NFL player); and a host of others including, "Tommy," "Fearless," "Pudge," "Chuckles," "X" (whose name is really Malcombe), "John," "Pat," "Doc," and "Guy." Guy is incorrigible. His favorite pastime is teasing R.C. Then there is "Lee" who erupts every time I walk in the room. He raises his hands over his head and shouts, "Praise the Lord," and likens me to Benny Hinn. Lee's nickname is "Home Doggy" (Figure that one out.).

The locker room is the quintessential arena for male bonding. It is the place where "Skippers" and the boys all call each other "pards." Every day golf games are made, bets are arranged by strokes, first tee arguments are settled, and Ron is heard to shout, "Call Rangoon," when he lays his cards on the table for gin. The locker room/grill room is off limits to women. It is a feminist's worst nightmare. It is a place of refuge where men are men, with all that that means, good and bad. It is a place for hard drinking, hard cursing, where men act like kids and are as rowdy as sailors on shore leave. It is also the place the guys refer to as "R.C.'s office," a term they use when they answer the corner phone.

Recently I walked into this place after being on the road for three weeks. Things were strangely quiet as the guys were absorbed in card games. Doc Albert looked up and saw me enter. In a sing-song voice he loudly declared, "He's back!" After a perfectly timed Jack Bennyesque pause, he added in the same cadence, "Who cares?"

This is how I am treated in this place. I love every minute of it. These men tease me to death. They call me "Preacher" and make me the butt of a thousand jokes. They squirt me with water pistols while I'm writing and dump ice down my shirt if I turn my back to them. Yet I know they do care. And several of them come regularly to a weekly Bible study I teach, which was started at their request.

Men long for the love of a woman. But what they are sheepish to admit is that they also long for the love and concern of their comrades. Most of them are fathers. All of them are sons. All of them want the caring love of their fathers. Not all of them received it. They all wanted it; they all needed it. But they all didn't get it.

I was one of the fortunate ones. No man ever displayed more care and affection for me as my father did. Like most boys, my father was my first and greatest hero. Though he left this world almost forty years ago (Oops, I was just interrupted. "Pudge" walked by and hollered, "What's happening, 'Rev'?"), I have vivid memories of him and evoke them frequently. These memories are a rich legacy that endures. One such memory jumps to my mind at this moment:

I had just returned from playing baseball. As I approached our driveway, still in uniform, lugging my bat over my shoulder with my spikes and glove dangling from the end of the bat, my next door neighbor, Mr. Davies, called, "Did you win, Kiner?" I lit up inside, smiled, and said, "Yes, we won." I loved it that he always called me "Kiner," a reference to Pittsburgh's legendary home-run king, Ralph Kiner.

I proceeded down my driveway where my father was standing by our back-yard barbecue pit while thick, juicy steaks were sizzling on the grill. My dad said, "How'd you do?" I said, "Great, Dad, I went three for four, two singles and a double." He replied, "What did you do the other time?" "I struck out." With a mock frown he said, "Struck out! - Then no steak for you for dinner."

I knew he was kidding. I knew he was really pleased, but it was his way to remind me that I still had lots of room for improvement. I knew that he cared. When he died a couple of years later my world fell apart. My anger raged against God for taking my father from me. It was not until I became a Christian that this rage was supplanted by love and delight in my heavenly Father. There are many people who have trouble relating to God as Father. Their earthly fathers were so abusive and uncaring that they flinch when they hear God referred to as "Father." That is not my problem. Though even God cannot completely fill the hollow place left in my soul by the absence of my earthly father, He fills a greater void for me than the world's greatest earthly father could never fill.

God is the supreme Father of care. He loves, chastens, rebukes, corrects, disciplines, and instructs. But above all, He cares. I take umbrage at those who, in their zeal for "political correctness," seek to strip the Bible of its masculine imagery and produce a version of gender-neutral language. This does grave insult to the Holy Spirit, who, without a view toward P.C. language, was pleased to inspire language drawn from fallen humanity, both male and female, that is an adequate vessel to communicate the character of God. Whatever else I may be, I am a man. I was born male and maleness is part of my identity just as femaleness is part of my wife's personal identity.

That God is my Father means that He cares for me, that when I ask for bread I will not receive a stone or a scorpion. His arms are strong. He is mighty in battle, a strong fortress for my soul. These terms may be masculine, but they are images of a strength that is tempered by tenderness, virtues every child, boy or girl, long for in their earthly father.