Who’s Your Daddy? [Happy Father’s Day, God]

Since I can’t seem to go anywhere this week without tripping over a Father’s Day gift trifecta of grills, cologne and cornhole, I’m using that as inspiration to riff on the meaning of fatherhood, and about my own Dad. 

Whether you are joyfully celebrating your great-daditude this week with barbeques & beer & gadgets & gear, or you have “Daddy issues”, or you’ve got father-guilt over not fulfilling the role the way you wish you would’ve, or identify yourself as being fatherless, this Bud’s for you.

We hold a lot of perceptions and expectations in this world about what constitutes a good father and how one should behave, don’t we? The judgments we have toward those whom we think don’t measure up are reflected in the terms “deadbeat dad”, “absentee father”, and “bad dad” (exhibit A: Luke Skywalker finding out that his father was the worst guy in the Universe).

So, when I was little I adored my Dad. I remember being crazy-excited to see him when he got home from work. He took me sledding and taught me to ice skate; he chauffeured my friends and me for ice cream every night in the summers, and proudly walked beside me when I rode my trike in the 4th of July parade (and yes I did win 1^st prize for being the most patriotically decorated trike-tyke ever!). 

My Dad was a dyed-in-the-wool farm boy – he referred to our family pets as “the livestock”, he could grow anything, fix anything, and I thought, pretty much do anything. He was funny, and warm, and loved to laugh. He was kind, and generous, and would do anything to help anyone – he had a rep for that around our whole ‘hood. 

He was friendly, and personable, and was always striking up conversations with complete strangers anywhere we went. He was sentimental too – for 42 years he brought my mother a dozen red roses for every possible occasion including probably Flag Day – and sometimes just for no reason. He loved us – his family – without reservation. 

My Dad was also a great storyteller, and in the middle of the telling of many of them he’d get to laughing so hard the tears would run down his face and he’d be gasping and would have to stop and catch his breath, and that would just make it so much funnier. He was sensitive too, and sometimes he’d choke up at a sad or poignant memory. 

He could not carry a tune to save his life, but did that slow him down at all from waking me up every day by singing, “Oh What a Beautiful Morning” totally off key at the top of his lungs? Nope. His enthusiasm for life was infectious, and his capacity for loving us, his family, was boundless. Back then, he was a hero to me.   

But at some point later in my childhood I became aware that my father also had a drinking problem, and the way my mind responded to that when it was explained to me was to begin to shift to seeing him differently, and to form a negative belief about him. 

This is what the ego mind does, doesn’t it? It takes a negative thought – maybe something someone says – and plants it in our consciousness without our even knowing it, and there it takes root, growing upward and outward until it blocks the light.  It becomes a belief system that will then govern our perception of the world in some way, without our having consciously chosen it. As Obi-Wan Kenobi similarly advised Luke Skywalker, “You’re going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.”

My perception of my father gradually devolved from being someone whom I adored to someone I was angry with, whom I regarded as weak and unwilling to change, and for whom I did not have a great deal of respect. I blamed my Dad and his drinking for everything I felt I lacked in my life. I was ashamed of him, I didn’t want to spend time with him, and didn’t want to bring my friends around him. In my adult years I held him responsible for the difficulty I experienced in my relationships with men.

My judgment made me forget the truth of who my Dad was – he was so much greater than the alcoholism he struggled with. But I couldn’t see that for a long time.  Although I had delighted in him as a young child – and have many happy memories and photographs attesting to that – much of that positive regard for him became tainted by my identification of him with alcoholism, and I misplaced the ability to experience all of the good and beautiful things that were still there, and still part of him. 

I would like to say that I resolved my relationship with my Dad before he made his transition at age 77 when I was 31, but I didn’t. I had moments of clarity and appreciation with him, including a healing forgiveness letter I wrote to him years before he left his body. 

Despite writing it, however, and even though I was told he carried that letter in his wallet for the rest of his life, I still became estranged from him later and was not able to heal the rift while he was here. Although our relationship was not reconciled before he left this Earth, I know that my Dad remembered that forgiveness letter, and I believe that he knew I loved him.

Many years later, after having become a student of A Course in Miracles, and practicing the forgiveness work that is a central teaching of it, I finally got it. I realized that my Dad, whom I had seen as largely having failed me in his role, was not in fact my father at all. 

God is my Father – perfect Love, always with me, never wavering, incapable of failing me, forever loving me.

My Dad was my BROTHER. Here on Earth as a fellow beloved child of our Creator, learning lessons right along with me. You could say we were like schoolmates together – teaching each other and helping one another learn what we needed to learn in order to reclaim the Truth of who we are. I’m sure he harbored unconscious guilt too, as do we all, for believing he was separate from our Father, and from his brothers, including me. Maybe that – on the deepest level – was what caused him to drink – just as that guilt causes all of our problems. 

My Dad’s journey here is not my business except in that it is mine to see him not as someone who failed himself, or me. It is to see him as spirit – pure, whole, innocent, and perfect as he was created to be – someone who was sent to me by Divine appointment – by our Father. 

A Course in Miracles tells us in lesson 224: “God is my Father, and He loves His Son”; and in lesson 229 it says, “Love, which created me, is what I am.” We, all of us, are His one Son, created by Love, as Love.

So if you are holding resentment toward your Earthly father, or if he was not present in your life, or you are in judgment of another father, I encourage you to forgive him, and regard him instead as your brother, who is innocent and learning along with you. Recognize and call forth the light of Truth in him, have gratitude for whatever in this experience with or without him has had value for you – what it taught you, how it strengthened you, and for how it has ultimately worked for your good. 

If you are someone who has guilt and shame over the kind of father you have been, I ask you to forgive yourself; to remember who your Father is, and by extension who you are, and have gratitude for the opportunity to learn to be a better brother to your kids. 

If you have had an awesome experience with your Dad here, celebrate with gratitude this brother having shown up in your life in this way. 

I love the Dictionary definitions of father as: “Creator, author; one that originates; source.” In light of that, I invite you to remember who your real Father is – the God of perfect Love – your Creator, the Author of you, from Whom you originated, your Source. You carry His legacy, as the light of the world. 

Lesson 123 of the Course says,

“I thank my Father for His gifts to me.”

ACIM

I also thank my Dad for his. I can’t know what his learning objectives were in relationship to me, nor do I know all of what mine were and are with regard to him. 

But I do know the most important thing that he helped me to cultivate in myself. 

That letter that I wrote my Dad when I was 20 was the first time I remember ever consciously saying “I forgive you” in my entire life. Now, as a student, teacher, counselor, coach, and minister of A Course in Miracles, I say it every single day (sometimes, like, 850 times) and have for many years. It has become the single most important phrase of my life. 

Those three words are the basis of what I teach, and the foundation of what I want to continue to learn. As the Course tells us, forgiveness of our brother offers us the closest thing to an expression of unconditional love that we have access to in this world – the ability to see the light in them, so that we may recognize that their light is also our own, reflected back to us.

Luke forgave his father, Darth Vader, refusing despite temptation to see only darkness in him. He said, “It is the name of your true self. You’ve only forgotten. I know there is good in you.” 

Word, Bro.

So thank you, Father, for sending my Dad to me, to see the Truth and the Light in him, so that I could see my own. 

And thanks Dad, for taking on the job, for coming to Earth in my dream of the world. For using the Force of Love, teaching me the meaning of forgiveness, and being the perfect Dad for me. 

With all my grateful heart, Happy Father’s Day.

A Father’s Day blessing from ACIM:

“Be in my mind, my Father, when I wake, and shine on me throughout the day today. Let every minute be a time in which I dwell with You. And let me not forget my hourly thanksgiving that You have remained with me, and always will be there to hear my call to You and answer me. As evening comes, let all my thoughts be still of You and of Your Love. And let me sleep sure of my safety, certain of Your care, and happily aware I am Your Son.” – ACIM, Lesson 232

And thank you, for being my Bro. I love you.

Your Sister from Another Mother and the Same Father,

Kelly

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