Faith of our fathers

Watching my father slowly decline in his 80’s is, as any daughter or son could tell, very difficult. Particularly with him, because he has such a strong animus. His is a will of iron that insists he’s not ready to go anywhere, just yet. So he isn’t. Since October, he’s been in and out of the hospital six or seven times.

Frankly, we’ve lost count. Thankfully.

Yesterday his heart rate was down in the 30’s somewhere, requiring nurses to keep appearing in the room, determined to wake him. I spent all of last night in his room, as he slowly but surely improved overnight. Today or tomorrow they determine if he can get a much-needed pacemaker.

What gets me is his faith, this unswerving belief and love for life. His may not have been an easy life – leaving school young in order to help on the farm, working night and day in his restaurant to make it a success, storming the beaches in Normandy in World War II and now, basically confined to the house with a walker that only marginally helps – but he’s loved all of it.

Of the two, dad is the bluster and swagger, the seemingly more lighthearted and fun. Mom is the placid sunny pond whose ripples never get below the surface, though underneath, much is present. So it would make more sense to me if mom were the one who clung tightly to life. Not the case.

My father refuses to go quietly into that dark night, and his faith that life – and we – still need him is sustaining. Such strength and conviction is enviable: to walk, to keep moving, to live even as his body begins to fail him.

Their generation has a tenacity subsequent generations seem to have lost, including mine. Perhaps it’s attributable to surviving the Great Depression, a World War, and not having the resources we all take for granted – including me. Whatever the cause, we need more of it in this world. I need more of it in my own life.

Lewis Black, books, God and me

NPR just ran an interview with Lewis, who is promoting his next book, “Me of Little Faith.” While that may be the title, and Lewis’ own stated beliefs, as I listened to him talk about not being able to believe God made the world in seven days because of a pesky little thing called “thoughts,” I realized that more often than not, it’s those who rail against the injustices of the world that may most care, really do believe in a higher power and are of strong spirit.

Why? Because if we didn’t have some form of belief in a higher power, we would not care so much, about injustice, or the deliberation over a higher power. We would not try so often and so much to show the world a better way forward, without war. We would not spend so much time discussing faith, or doubting our own, if we didn’t already have a whole lot of it inside.

Black has often said that if Jesus had not died, we would not have Christianity. I completely disbelieve this. Christ still brought forward a different, better way of thinking, performed miracles, filled people’s hearts and inspired greatness. I once heard someone say that The Crucifixion was for God to understand human suffering, and that makes sense to me.

My daughter asks me why I write on a blog – why I don’t write a book that reaches a larger audience, or something that stands a chance to make money. While I would like those things, because I am like everyone else and care some about readership and money, I blog mostly due to inspiration, or when the moment strikes that I feel I can actually share something important. I care about the things I blog about, think about them often.

It occurs to me that Black doesn’t recognize his faith working through him in the strange and wonderful ways God always works — but that it is working. He may be an outward cynic, but his words and humor come from a core that really and truly cannot help but care about humanity and faith. Even though he claims no longer to be a Jew, his Higher Power really does exist.

While it may be slightly different, so does my higher power. I realize that the past few years I’ve taken for granted every good thing I had – my family, friends, home, children (when they were being difficult, as teenagers often are), a man who cared about me but whose actions I was unable to fully understand, so I assumed the worst rather than the best. . .my mind and heart, body, health and appearance. God gave me these gifts just like he gave everyone, in order to do good in the world and be happy.

Well, no more. I am going to do my best to embrace what I DO have in this world, the people who love me, the people I also love, my health, laughter, happiness, home, family and every aspect of this life God has so generously provided. Maybe someday I will write a book of the same style as Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet, but for now, I will simply work to really value what each day brings, and all that comes along with each new day.

And I will remember that I have faith, even when it seems as though I am a curmudgeonly old cynic. Cynic, sinner, saint, doubting Thomas. . .all of us are all that, and more, inside. It’s all a matter of what we focus on. So we choose. I choose to try and stay positive, but accept that there will be times I struggle with all of it, despite having faith.

Because sometimes, like with Black, God works through all of us in mysterious ways, but still gets His point across.

To get where you are going

You have to see where you have been. Or so they say. I believe it’s true.

As author Jerry White said: everyone has a date with disaster. Sooner or later, no matter how good or bad a person, everyone slams directly into uncomfortable, life altering emotions or events. And then, for a time, perhaps forever, life becomes divided into before and after. Before this happened, all of this. After, all of that.

Yet, I firmly believe we can do our best to choose happiness, both before and after. Everything broken needs time to heal and time to change into something new, and that something can be better than before. It may not be stronger, but they say broken and mended bones are actually stronger. So why not broken hearts or altered dreams? It’s a slow, winding process, but one that can happen.

Suffering is a natural component to loss, and loss is one of every person’s dates with destiny. Yet, why do we suffer? Often because we are attached to outcomes, to things, to the way we see life unfolding. Whether that is good for us or otherwise, we want what we want and we suffer for not. getting. it — in all senses of the phrase. But why suffer? When we didn’t get something, our attachment to it becomes much greater, much of the time. Yet it is not really the item or event for which we suffer, but the loss. If we can view our losses as winning another opportunity, we can begin to handle grief with grace.

I am, as it happens, not well equipped for these things, in practice. For a fair amount of my life, I have been arrogant, tied to outcomes, impatient. Even now, as I type, I grow frustrated with various and sundry unchangeable things. I am human: egotistical, at times oblivious, forgetful, sometimes amazingly astute, other times clueless. And I have made mistakes aplenty.

BUT. . .I do believe in the power of positivity, the opportunity that loss affords in an uncertain world, and the fact that we all hold within us the keys to healing ourselves. It’s a matter of putting it into practice, a little more each day.

Someone said we need more poets as managers. We need them because they know what they believe, deep down. I am not a manager nor a published poet, but I am a poet, albeit one with an untrained voice, and I do know what I believe.

Protected: My mother – the touchstone

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