Evolution from Father to Son

My father and I had dinner last night. We’ve had dinner each of the past 5 nights, breakfasts and lunches too for the most part. He is on the sixth day of a seven day stay with me. His trip initially consisted of a few days with me and a few days at a friend’s cabin, but the friend fell though and his trip became a week long father and son visit. It has been good and for the most part I’ve very much enjoyed the extra time we’ve had together, however, I feared that a moment would come when angst would manifest between us – that moment always seems to come – and last night it came once again.

We’ve spoken extensively on the issue of spiritually over the past five days, it is certainly my father’s favorite subject, and I’m never one to shy away from the discussion of things unseen. Our talks included the availability of truth in nature and people’s ability to rise above divisions and doctrines and find a greater, collective consciousness. Admittedly, such ideas are the axe I’ve been grinding of late, but I feel that he is on board with such notions, even if he chooses to find his answers within the context of Christianity. Christianity is my father’s domain, I get that. The Bible is where he begins and ends. The seeking he does is in the Bible, when it rains the Bible is his umbrella, and when the hot sun beats down mercilessly the Bible is there to shield him from it. Even so, many years of conversation have allowed me to see that my father’s notions of spiritual truth extend far beyond the rubric of Christianity, at least as western culture has come to practice it. In many ways we believe the same things and are unearthing the same ideas, and I like to think that we are fundamentally on the same path.

I would be lying if said that my father’s staunch adherence to the Bible didn’t worry me. I am of the mind that what truth there is to find, if there is any universal truth at all, can be found in nature directly and, for that matter, in each one of us. I sense that humanity is accelerating towards a time when the holy books we’ve known will be unnecessary for those seeking spiritual enlightenment-perhaps the time is already upon us? The energy of God is everywhere and it flows around and through us like currents in the ocean. But instead of trusting their senses, their inherent instincts, most people try to understand and access this energy through one or more existing holy texts — books that each, in their own way, filter the very energy which flows freely and purely to us from the source. These scriptures come in many shapes and sizes, languages and translations. Even those of the same faith cannot agree on which translation of a given text is best or how to properly translate one verse or another. I don’t discount that such texts have served as a tool for much good, just as no sane person will deny their repeated use as a justification for countless acts of atrocity. The simple fact is that such books, for all the good they do, are a source of immense differentiation. They are divisive by their very nature and have acted to draw borders between people, whether they are residents of different nations or neighbors sharing a duplex. People may be tolerant of others with differing views – they may even maintain friendships with those of another faith – but at a deep level they understand themselves to be fundamentally different, and I see that as a problem. Books like the Bible and the Talmud can be very useful tools for gaining spiritual insight and maturity, but they are only tools, and when they begin to work against a spirit of unity they have outlived their usefulness and the time has come to move beyond them.

A friend of mine recently asked me when I’d “lost my faith”. I assured her that my faith was fully intact and, in fact, experiencing an upsurge. However, she was correct in accessing my departure from the traditional things taught to me in my strict Christian upbringing. Even as a devout Christian I didn’t quite fit in; I was always searching and wanting more. My friends in Lutheran high school jokingly called me “Bub” (short for Beelzebub) from time to time once they’d found out that I’d begun attending a different church each Sunday looking for a something more, something beyond what the Lutheran teachings were providing me. From the time I was a child there was a fundamental flaw in Christianity that I could not sidestep despite my most sincere efforts: somehow Christianity’s exclusivity failed to resonate with me and, once I was taught that non-Christians would be unsaved and doomed to eternal damnation it was really only a matter of time; that box was simply not big enough and, try as I might, I could not make God fit into it. As a young Christian I spent summers counseling at a Bible camp where in the dark of our cabins we’d have hushed discussions in the wee hours of night, daring to ponder the fate of those raised in a far off jungle who’d never heard the name of Jesus, the aborted children who’d hadn’t received the baptismal sacrament, or the backslidden former faithful who’d once accepted Christ with tears in their eyes but had long since strayed from the flock. Restful sleep never seemed to follow such discussions. I was placed in charge of groups of young boys, my mission to indoctrinate them with all I’d learned – I did my part. Now I feel that this was nothing more than the blind leading the soon to be blind. I am still blind, but to a large degree I’ve stopped fooling myself into believing that I can see. I’m not as interested in teaching others now – we’re all on our own path and the answers are there to be found if we persist in searching – or so I hope. What assurance do any of us really have that our answers will be of use to anyone but us? When I write, I don’t do it to save the world, I do it for the sake of my own sanity. I do it because things bubble to the surface and, as such, must find somewhere else to go. Things keep evaporating from deep inside me, and so I write. I don’t write because I have answers, I write because I have questions.

My father began to write some years ago as well, but it took him longer to knuckle down and do it. It wasn’t that he was lazy or devoid of insight, just that the standards he held himself to were unattainable, so he didn’t try. In my father’s own words, something in him longs to “hit the homerun”, to save the world. He has been a musician for most of his life but has never written a single song, never even tried. If you ask him he will tell you that he knew any song he wrote would have to be the greatest song ever written, so he didn’t bother. This is his approach to things, and it is one that seems to be prevalent on his side of the family. Not all of my aunts and uncles have it, but most do and, what is worse, I have seen its appearance within my generation. It is visible in my cousin the songwriter who refuses to listen to other people’s music, insisting that it is a waste of time and that his efforts are better spent writing his own songs; other people’s approaches and styles are unacceptable and unwanted. He has all the gifts a songwriter needs but has experienced no success. His songs are inaccessible somehow and tend towards unnecessary complexity and, perhaps a fancy, showing off of the musical skills he possesses. These things are all well and good, but they rarely make for the best approach when trying to connect with others and, after all, that is what writing is about. My father’s family shows off their talent in a frenetic attempt to attract the world’s attention, but in the end it is their hand waving and come see what I can do attitude that has caused the world to largely ignore them. It is a sad fate for such a talented group of individuals and, as if to add insult onto injury, I am my father’s son.

My father has scoured the Bible from cover to cover looking for secrets that have been placed there for only the most seasoned searcher to find– those who know when to abandon English texts in favor of Greek or Hebrew. It is as if the Bible is a puzzle that God has provided for us – a pot of gold waiting just beyond a divine version of New York Times crossword. In my father’s Bible the devil is in the details that go undiscovered; no verse is left unturned. Truth is esoteric and the Bible is a seekers fairy world, a place where a simple change in verb conjugation can cause pendulums to swing, and where salvation dangles by a single participle. Always the dutiful disciple, my father has constructed a mosaic which is second to none, one that answers all his questions and is capable of righting the world’s wrongs if only the world would listen. His search has isolated him in many ways: from the church, from his family, from people he might have called friends. Still, he searches. I can’t fault him for how he has chosen to conduct his life because, in truth, I’ve never met a better man. He is patient and caring to a fault and loves the sinner even while hating the sin. He walks what he talks and that is much more than most people are capable of. His method of conducting business works for the world: we get a good man and an upstanding, trustworthy member of society. Sadly, I’m not sure that his approach will ever provide him with the things he needs – the world may never open itself to receipt of his philosophies – and to my father, this would seem to be the true measure of success.

My father’s rules are strict and they do not bend. The family unit is paramount, and things like abortion, gay marriage, drug use, communism, and overt sexuality serve to rot the very core of this institution. As he sees it, when the family unit falls away so does America, and eventually all of humanity will follow suit. If someone offers a solution or an idea but fails to pass my father’s family unit litmus test they are summarily dismissed, as if their ideas are unworthy of an audience because of their views on pertinent social issues. This is how my father approaches politics: he does not need to hear an opposing viewpoint because it comes from someone whose ideas merit no worth. This is the world my father has constructed around himself, one in which broken clocks simply refuse to be right twice a day.

Last night the angst between my father and I returned once again, maybe for the last time. I say this because I’ve finally realized that the issues which cause tension between us will never go away and, as such, I will be better served by accepting their existence and doing what I can to avoid them. My father and I part ways only when our conversation has traveled to the very edges of the kingdom he’s constructed. Invariably a line is reached, and beyond that line I must walk alone. I’d like my father to cross with me, to walk further with me, but I understand now, maybe for the first time ever, that there are some lines he will never cross. Perhaps he was never meant to – that’s simply not the way he was built – my answers do not serve him any more than his serve me. There is sadness in this fact, an aching felt each time I cross over and leave him standing on the other side. I can see that he views my departure as a rejection of his theologies and all he has striven to instill in me. I see things very differently. Some part of me understands that it was his upbringing that molded me into someone capable of bridging boundaries and letting go of rudimentary elements of the Christian faith. I don’t leave him behind because I desire to part from him, I do so because he has prepared me to take what I’ve learned and carry it beyond where I found it; a journey that will certainly bring me to a border I’m simply not willing to cross. Someone else will have to take it from there.