Midweek Faith Lift
June 21, 2023
Celebrating Dad
Rev. Deb Hill-Davis
Spiritual Reflection
June 13, 2023
Lloyd Devereux Richards spent 14 years writing a crime thriller entitled “Stone Maidens.” But when Lloyd finally published his masterwork in 2012, there was little response from readers or critics. It sat for years, unnoticed, in Amazon’s Kindle store. That is, until his daughter, Marguerite, promoted the book on Tik Tok. Her video got almost 50 million views and Stone Maidens vaulted to a best seller.
“Patience is hope in action. It waits for the saving help of God without giving up, giving in, or going away.” – Thomas Keating, Open Mind, Open Heart
Affirmative prayer: Today, I employ the spiritual skills of confidence, ingenuity, and patience. My cause is championed by my belief, and I give thanks to know that Spirit is poised, ready to meet my desire with triumph. Thank you, God, forever. Amen.
When I read this story, it really landed with me as the “just right” story for Father’s Day because it is about the daughter helping her dad, particularly with the use of social media. And it is also about patience, a key ingredient in parent/child relationships. It doesn’t say how old she is, but this seems like an adult-to-adult relationship, which is often when things between parents and children relax, improve and the sense of friendship deepens. That was certainly my experience with my dad!
It is easy to lapse into “treacle” when reflecting on what “dad” means and what “Father’s Day” is all about. Instead, I want to share some of the meaningful and insightful quotes about dads; things my dad said and also from others, lest we forget the human side of dad! So here we go: First, my dad
“Why can nobody in this house turn off a light?!?”
“Close the door, I’m not paying to heat/cool the whole outdoors!!”
From a family member: “My dad used to drive like he was in race that no one else on the road knew about and he had to win!”
And from Jerry Seinfeld: “You can tell what was the best year of your father’s life because they seem to freeze that clothing style and ride it out!”
From Clarence Darrow on the whole experience of parenting: “The first half of our lives is ruined by our parents, the second half by our children.”
From Dave Barry: “Remember, what Dad really wants is a nap. Really.”
From Jim Gaffigan: “Raising kids may be a thankless job with ridiculous hours, but at least the pay sucks!”
AND finally from Erma Bombeck: “We wondered why when a child laughed, he belonged to Daddy and when he had a sagging diaper that smelled like a landfill, “He wants his mother.”
Don’t we all love and remember the human side of dad? There were also a good many quotes, which essentially said that the older we get, the more we appreciate and understand our dad and seek the wisdom of his life experience. That was also true for me! When we consider the energy of “dad” we are engaging the energy of the “Divine Masculine” which is essentially our thinking nature. The masculine energy tends to focus on “fixing things,” problem solving and reacting/responding from the head more than the heart. My dad was very much like that. He fixed my bike, my car, and what have you. He was “all head” and thinking until he found Unity and his heart broke open. And then his wife died, and his heart really broke open and things began to change for him and for me.
In our human experience, we frequently prefer and get stuck in the “thinking” mode because we can avoid unpleasant or unhappy feelings. The thoughts we have and continually revisit are very powerful, at times feeding our discontent, or fears and our hurt feelings. Those thoughts, whether true, accurate or delusions, are what shape our reality, because they are what we believe to be true. Continually focusing on them convinces our human brain that they are true. We can generally describe our thoughts as “the story I’m telling myself” about any given situation, person or circumstance. When we get attached to the “story I’m telling myself,” we identify with it and then make it come true without any awareness of what we are doing. And then we suffer.
I came across this quotation on my Facebook feed this past week from Sara Kuburic and it reads like this: “If you don’t have all the information, stop filling in the blanks with your imagination, fears or projections. It’s better to learn to sit with an unclear picture than to carry around an inaccurate one.” What a powerful statement of truth that is, for sure. It is much better to sit and let the mud clear so that you can see and understand what is really there, at least from your perspective and experience.
It goes right along with this message in Matthew from Jesus as he spoke to his listeners:
Matthew 7:3-5
3 Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye but do not notice the log in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye. (NRSV- UE)
It is only when we sit in the silence and listen, just like Todd spoke about last week that we can hear what our heart is saying when we let the thought chatter be quiet. If and when we do that, our heart and head can come together, which is our thinking and feeling natures. When that happens, then true healing happens.
In is blog this week from June12, 2023, called “All Life is Sacred”- Richard Rohr writes:
Once we recognize the Christ as the universal truth of matter and spirit working together as one, then everything is holy. Once we surrender to this Christ mystery in our oh-so-ordinary selves and bodies, we begin to see it in every other ordinary place too….. Our task is to find the good, the true, and the beautiful in everything—even, and most especially, in the problematic. The bad is never strong enough to counteract the good. ….Once we deepen contact with our strong and loving soul, which is also the Indwelling Spirit, we are no longer pulled to and fro with every passing feeling. This is the peace that Jesus gives, a peace that nothing else can give, and that no one can take from us (see John 14:27).
He continues:
Divine Incarnation took the form of an Indwelling Presence in every human soul and surely all creatures in some rudimentary way. Ironically, our human freedom gives us the ability to stop such a train and refuse to jump on board our own life….. The only way we ourselves can refuse to jump onto the train of life is by any negative game of exclusion or unlove—even of ourselves. Everything belongs, including us.
Thank you, Richard Rohr, for reminding us that we are the ones who imprison ourselves in thoughts and feelings that keep us attached to our story, whatever that might be. When we pause, pray and listen, we can let go of the story, our attachment to the story and begin to engage with what is really True, spiritually true, about us and every other being, including our very imperfect dads.
We are just about at the point of the summer solstice, the longest period of daylight in the northern hemisphere. Tomorrow is Juneteenth when the enslaved black people in Texas FIRST learned of their freedom. What a powerful series of days we have right here and now! Imagine what thoughts might have been like in the minds of those newly aware of their freedom, no longer enslaved people must have had and the feelings to go along with it! What kind of stories did they tell themselves to celebrate their freedom? Initial disbelief would be one of mine….is it really true? Can I trust this?
Ultimately, our question is can we trust that Spirit is always with us, no matter what other people do or say? And do we really take to heart that we can have love, ease and peace no matter whether we are heard, understood or accepted by our parents, our children, our family etc. I love the following quotation by Margaret Atwood:
This is the solstice, the still point of the sun, its cusp and midnight, the year's threshold and unlocking, where the past lets go of and becomes the future; the place of caught breath." - Margaret Atwood. Canadian poet, teacher, environmental activist
Let us take a moment to catch our breath at this still point of the sun and realize the joy, richness of life and the wonder and beauty we can have when the “past lets go of the future.” I don’t know what the relationship was between the father and daughter in the opening story. What I do know is that his book sat from 2012 to present time before his daughter took action that launched it into the world and made it such a huge success. There is no doubt, a story behind that long delay, one that we will never know. What we do know is that the “speck” fell out of both their eyes, the feminine “feeling” energy and masculine “thinking” energy came together and yielded unbounded success. Patience truly is “hope in action” which can all experience through the power of our Divine feminine and Divine masculine natures working together to manifest the Presence of Spirit, the Presence of Love. I want to leave you with a poem by Ruth Bebermeyer about the power of the words we use:
Words Are Windows (or They're Walls)
I feel so sentenced by your words,
I feel so judged and sent away,
Before I go I've got to know,
Is that what you mean to say?
Before I rise to my defense,
Before I speak in hurt or fear,
Before I build that wall of words,
Tell me, did I really hear?
Words are windows, or they're walls,
They sentence us, or set us free.
When I speak and when I hear,
Let the love light shine through me.
There are things I need to say,
Things that mean so much to me,
If my words don't make me clear,
Will you help me to be free?
If I seemed to put you down,
If you felt I didn't care,
Try to listen through my words,
To the feelings that we share.
~ Ruth Bebermeyer
Blessings on the Path,
Rev. Deb