a father's love

So this weird thing happened at the gym the other day.  i saw a guy, a dad, working with some free weights, and this guy looks like he takes his weightlifting seriously.  i could tell because of his special weightlifting gloves and belt.  he was with a kid, i assume his son, who looks...let's say 10th grade?  And the dad is teaching the son the ropes - basic lifts and lifting technique.  i know the son is new at this because there's about a 30-40 lb. difference between his weights and his dad's (and even i'm using about 10-15 lbs. more than him, so that's really saying something). 

But the funny thing wasn't that a dad was teaching his son about lifting weights.  It's that he just seemed so stinkin' happy about it.  It was all acted out like a scene from a movie, but a cheesy movie where the facial expressions are so transparent that i feel somewhat confident in the story i created to go with them.  The dad looked to me as if he was thinking how proud he was of his son for choosing to do this thing that he loved - happy that his son was following in his footsteps.  He even pointed out some other (totally ripped) guys at the bench press as if to say, "Look at them, son.  You could have muscles like that some day.  You could life that much weight some day.  Just stick with me and I'll show you how."  But...as wonderful as that sounds, there was something off about the whole thing.  Because behind that happiness and pride, i felt that i almost detected a certain gratefulness.  Grateful that his son was choosing to lift weights like his old man, instead of, oh i dunno, join the chess team?  take ballet classes?  go to cooking school?  be a member of whatever the opposite political party is?  or what have you...

i'm sure the son wanted to be there, or else he wouldn't have been there (because in 10th grade, we don't do things we don't want to do, or at least not without being a jerk about it in the process).  but i couldn't help wondering, what if he didn't want to be there?  would that father still have been as proud and jovial? 

Now i add the extra layer to this.  Curiously, at the same time i was observing all of this and creating the little backstories (which again, i feel confident in, because the scene really was awfully cliched), a song by Jason Upton came on my ipod called "Come Up Here," in which there are very few actual written lyrics (as Upton has a tendency to improvise in his worship songs...like, a lot), but among them are, "Come up here, come up now/ My beloved, my beloved," which i took be a reference to God's proclamation at Jesus' baptism that that was his beloved son, with whom he was well pleased.  And, without trying too hard to judge the father in my story, who i am certain loves his son very much, i could not help but see the juxtaposition and contemplate on unconditional love and wonder if the portrait i saw of fathers and sons in the gym actually displayed it.  Or were those weights actually strings attached to the father's heart?  Was it a conditional love?  i have no reason to believe it was anything but unconditional, and i certainly hope that's exactly what it was.  i have been lucky fortunate blessed to have a father who loves me all the time because of/in spite of all the things i am and love, as well as a Father who loves me even more than that!  i guess when i was at the gym, i was reminded of that...and i hope that kid has the same blessing in his life, even if he puts the weights down.