I have spent the week thinking of my father, who sleeps for increasingly long periods of time, and is apparently having seizures. When I called him earlier this week, he did not want to talk. Yesterday he talked, but his words made no sense.
Some months ago, as his health began yet another decline, I reflected on the gifts which he has brought to my life. As my family and I continue to search for ways to express our love for him while respecting his needs, I share that reflection, and pray for his peace:
My Cyrus
When the Israelites had been in exile
for a generation and more, Cyrus the Mede—that Persian, gentile, “not one of
us” king—told them they could go home.
And they learned: that God shows
up in amazing places, and can speak through anyone.
The summer I was 19, I went with my
father to a nature preserve, where he spent the day taking pictures. On the way there, he told his would become
reverend daughter that he didn’t believe in God:
“I go to church because your mom wants
me to, I guess.”
Years
later, in seminary, I hung the gorgeous, breathtaking pictures he took that day
on the walls of my room, and told friends, “My father says he’s an atheist, yet
his pictures bear witness to God. You
cannot create something that beautiful without being connected to the holy.”
At 26, I was jobless, depressed, and
living at home. My father, who had spent
most of his life avoiding expressions of intimacy at all costs, looked at me
and said, “I know things look pretty bad right now, but I promise you, things
will get better.”
A few years ago, I went home to visit
my parents. We hadn’t seen each other in
three years. They were in their
nineties; I was a lot more disabled than I use to be. Traveling wasn’t easy for any of us. We knew this would likely be the last time we
saw each other. My mother couldn’t get
enough of me. My father barely said two
words. Not because he was mean or evil,
but because he was Dad. Words were as
hard for him as walking was for me. Yet when I left, I saw him standing at the
window—crying.
From my atheist father--
Who took gorgeous pictures
Who said just the right words
Who had tears in his eyes
I learned—
that God shows up in amazing
places, and can speak through anyone.
I'm so sorry to hear about your dad. Do they know why he's having seizures? Having watched my mother's last years, when I read your description of him sleeping more, I thought to myself, it sounds like he may be starting to let go of this life. Is that how you're seeing it? I don't want to project my more dismal prognosis onto the situation.
ReplyDeleteMy own father was an unhappy man, married to a woman who wasn't good at connecting with anyone and who didn't like sex, trapped in a job he didn't like in order to support 5 kids he probably didn't want -- unfulfilled professionally and personally.
And I can't imagine him saying to me anything as positive as, I promise you, things will get better. How wonderful that your father said that, and how unimaginably special it would have been to see my dad's eyes fill with tears as he contemplated my leaving.
From my own experience of being an atheist, and from having a family member who's a "devout" atheist, I've come to believe that everyone has a god whether they describe it as a god or not, because it's essential to the human psyche to have a "highest value," which I think is what
a god is. I think the psyche needs to have an overarching rationale, or deciding factor, just in order to be sane. Something that makes decision-making possible when life is impossibly complex, as it so often is. I imagine for a soldier in war survival sometimes plays that role -- whatever helps to ensure survival is the highest value, even if it's slaughtering civilians.
I think for my family member "science" or "medicine" or perhaps "logic" is the unnamed, unacknowledged god. During my own 20 years of atheist I think my unnamed, unacknowledged god was something like "the progress of humankind."
What do you think of that idea?
My dad retired at 65 and increased the time he spent taking nature photographs, which had become a hobby as he got older. I think he hoped his nature photography business would take off, but it didn't -- he won a few minor prizes in photography contest, and he sold a few note cards featuring his photos. In my opinion his photos were nice enough but none of them was art, and that was always going to limit his success. I know I'm a bit of a snob when it comes to art.
Should have said Dad retired at 62, he focused on photography for 3 years before dying at 65.
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