By Dr. Alex McFarland for AMERICAN FAMILY NEWS
“I’d give everything I’ve ever done to know that my dad loved me.” The man who said those words to me had just won a Grammy award.
For several decades of his life, musicians who enjoyed worshipful status in both pop and classical worlds would gush at the mention of this man’s name, groping for words to adequately express how much they “got it”: Brian Wilson was a musical genius.
It was almost as if the final summit atop the pop music celebrity mountain was for a journalist to ask a rock star, “Tell me your thoughts about Brian Wilson…” The soundbite clips of rock royalty from every decade waxing eloquent/nostalgic/awestruck over the Wilson canon are legion.
And yet, amidst one of the better seasons of his storied career, Brian quietly said to me, “I’d give everything I’ve ever done to know that my dad loved me.” It was my honor to talk with him about the love of our Heavenly Father.
In what became equal parts “genuflecting fans” and “pastoral visits,” my wife and I had the privilege of visiting with Brian Wilson on numerous occasions. The door into Brian’s presence had been opened for us by one of the closest friends I ever had, the late Jeffrey Foskett.
