We sat on the carpet, the rug, the home around lit at dusk on a vibrant evening. We sat there, cross-legged in a quite relaxed, quite cozy living room, by the fireplace, though there be no fire, by the furnishings, though there be but modest furnishings. There be plants about, be art about, but in an eastern way, the space was grounded, of its own nature, calm and inviting, the space its own being. We were grounded there from where we sat on the floor.

Across my crossed legs, a kind of divider between us, was a baseball bat. Wooden. Classical. Very not practical. Not for its lack of practicality. Surely it was just fine as bats are concerned. However, for this family, for me, this bat was of no use. It had a good weight, however. Good feel. A good look.

As it was weighted in my hands, so I let its weight fall on the floor between us, pushed it to roll, unevenly did it roll according to the tapering of its barrel, one wide circle it would have made if only it rolled more than the few degrees I had pushed it. Pushed it towards you.

“You could destroy everything in this home. You could take this bat this moment, and full of rage, destroy as much as your strength could allow. I would not stop you. How would I stop you? Lest we bat each other. Ha! As if for this lesson I would have purchased two bats. But no. See,” I said. Explaining.

“The point is I would love you no less. My love is unconditional despite what I tell you. Despite my words and my actions. The truth behind it all is unconditional. All unconditional. I fail at times to perfectly express that, but let not my failings condition you wrongly to believe in conditions. Love is unconditional, superseding our limited perceptions of its true nature.

“Of course, if you really were to bat this place to pieces, there’d be certain consequences, no doubt. I hope you wouldn’t mind living in a house of debris. Mom, for one, would freak. But we would not scold your actions. How could we? On what grounds would we stand to scold you?”

“This dagger, then,” you said. “I could take it to your heart, or worse, perhaps, to mine, and you would not scold me? You would not love me any less?”

“It is true. See, for a time the parenting is hard. Your toddler self was hard to keep alive. So we did bark on occasion, in matters of emerging peril. But you know the risks now. You know the physics of this world. You can imagine the horrors of jumping from the roof having never landed such a stunt. You can imagine the jolt of electrocution should you shove your metal things into the sockets of walls. You can imagine the inconvenience of slicing your wrists while never having cut yourself. You can imagine the pain we should feel as your parents should you take your own life. The anguish and deep sorrow. Not to lose you, of course, but to have closed the scene on this play, the show stop upon an otherwise perfectly set scene, the chance and opportunity for you to learn, for your soul to learn, and for us to learn by teaching you. Perhaps it is time for the scene to end. Perhaps not. We would think not, but we are not totally privy. We ask you to feel. What feeling is right is not our job to say, but to allow you the space to know for yourself.”

That was the explanation given, that the foremost honor as parent is as guide, for what the guide can give and receive. That there be no real outcome to child rearing, to life at large except to evolve the soul and to honor the soul’s wishes. For it is the soul’s will that creates the soul’s life. None other can there be to interfere, except of course in the mixing of souls, by which of course your reactions are also your soul’s to choose.

“At this instance, I am a few years your elder. I may not even be as evolved as you, but in this moment I am slightly more remembered, more realized in knowing this world. So here I am having come to teach you as your earthly father.”

“I hope you will accept this teaching as a great privilege, as I accept the opportunity the same. Our time and culture is easy to ask for expectations, but God does not care about the outcome for the end is assured. God is us. Remember this. The way forward is lonely for you alone are responsible for your life. But the paradox. You are not alone. Not even God can live your life for you, though God be you. Only you can understand yourself. Do not look towards others for their understanding and acceptance of you. I cannot live for you just as you cannot live for me. But in the end you realize as I realize that we are at once the same, made from God, in God. At that knowing, loneliness passes, for there can be no loneliness. God is all around, the fabric of everything.”

“Will you not discipline me,” you ask.

“We will not. We cannot. We ask as your guide to be careful not to discipline, too badly, yourself. Right behavior is necessary, but right behavior is also your nature. Discipline is not to control you but to free you from the prison of ignorance, from forgetfulness of Godself. As much as we can be, we will do our best to remind you of your Godself as much as we are living to remind ourselves of our Godselves. But please, find no fault with love or God as you understand it from our, perhaps, faltering expression. Though I be your dad, I have also, very likely in past lives, been your son. So see me as both, and see yourself as both, for the both of us have both been both father and son, son and father to one another alike.

“As you have expectations for how I shall act, remember that so have you had those same expectations for me. This is neither a game of superiors nor equals for though we are threads of the same cloth, we are not the same thread, nor ever can we be. My duties and my colors are my own, as yours are yours. May I teach you what I have learned of this wool, but cast no blame nor hold no illusion for how it appears to be for only you in your matured experience can understand what your life is to be. No teacher can give you realization. The best we may hope for is to be shown the way.”

Conversations like these end calmly, or all at once in a boisterous laugh or relieving outburst. So it was when mother came in yelling for us “boys” to help with dinner. She was yelling at us.

“S**t. Did you turn off the stove?”

Me looked at me and laughed. It was hard not to laugh at mom’s upset with us for little things given our present context for what seemed to envelope the every thing.

“No,” came your furtive smile.

“Coming,” I said, our scene now cast. A side.

Heavenly Father,

There’s a drive.

Happy Birthday! The privilege to be among your work peoples’ inner peoples. As coworkers, then, we hope your work continues to serve you by inspiring and supporting your abilities to serve.

Speaking of service, it is time for us to return your favor hosting us for the India debriefing. We need to hear all about Egypt, Jordan, and beyond by hosting you.

From Quentin.

P.S. Your handmade Japanese pottery piece is still in transit from Japan. Another reason to schedule a dinner.

Leap frog is such a fun game.

Thumbnail by MonumentalMisc

Nature, beauty, ugly not, perfect chaos, tranquil rot, the bug, the beetle, cicada, bee, the cricket, the wren, the fly, the tree, the crow, the squirrel, the frog, the toad, the wind, the stick, the distant, distant, distant moan, high, high highway drone, the car, the train, the concrete path, the pavement on the globe that hath, the bap, the bap of pickle ball, the paddles, the paddles, the paddles, them all, the warm air rising in the sun, the breath, the nostril, the double lung, the shallow thrum of a de-pressed heart, the one that sung the law of one, the soil, the rust, the grate, the bench, the seat, the park, the city stench. But no, it’s just the park trash can, serviced by the male park hand, paid by residents, paid by me, paid by the ones who birthed my need. Paid to the city. The city. I see. The city. The city. Sandy Springs.

Nature, nature, nature. Is. Nature. Is. Nature. Is. A car that won’t car no more. A stick no longer a tree. A pot, a crack, the water won’t hold, the leak, the mildew, the mold. A folder folded past its fold. A river dry. A sun gone cold. A dog burrowing its final hole. The roots in knots. This is not my route. The root of the knot. The battery no charge. The wrinkled balloon. Gravity won. Helium undone. Party all gone. The dull knife. The rusted spring. The pressure none. Man. Me. This tired thing. This destined bum.

This dead man. This fire. This firing. This fire ring. This kiln. This clay. The damn D-Day. Day. Day. This sacrifice. This sacrilege. The funeral. The dirt. The ground. The seed.

The spring. The sod. Anew. The breeze. The seize. The plea, “Thy God, Thy God, Thy wrest from Thee,” to take my name, my name, Thy pain, my pain is Thine and Thine my name.

History gone. Future blank. Anew. I knew. A new, new dawn. Do. Over. No regret. No shame, no guilt, no name, no fret. A fresh clutch. A fresh page. A canvas white. Become the sage. Fresh rain. A new day.

A dream I had of shedding skin. Calloused. Thick. Sick. Sick. Sick. To tear away my outer flesh, I fear of blood, of pain, of death. I peel, I peel, I peel away. My heel exposed. No blood. I pray. But there it was. Skin under skin. A fresh pink sole. Healed. Under sin. Trapped. My soul. In overcoats. Overdue. The time. I was. The time I was. To be renewed. Dead. I crave. To be. To be. To be. To be. I thought by now that I’d been freed. But then I woke. I woke. Again.

There I was. InAll my skin.

 When little,

Deplete of love,