My Father, My Self
by Tom Baker
Lesson: Chap. 4, The Illusions of the Ego, VII. Creation and Communication and Chap. 5, Healing and Wholeness, II. The Voice for God
Date: June 15, 2008
My father was not the father that I wanted. Early in life I looked at my dad and thought, "Are you the right one? Are you really the one I picked?" I found out about Edgar Cayce fairly early in life, about age 8, and one of the things Edgar said was that we pretty much choose our parents. What was my soul thinking? Even at that early age I had an idea of who would have been better: Fred McMurray, Andy Griffin, even Captain Kangeroo. Or, the best, Sky King---Out of the Blue of the western sky comes Sky King, his niece Penny and his son Tom. Instead I had my very earth-bound father, a man who trudged---my father was Atlas with an attitude----he carried the world on his back and he didn't like it. His attitude was one of doom: another depression was just around the corner, the thunderstorm might become a tornado, my skinned knee could develop into lockjaw; death was always close by. Everyday could be your last, any meal your final repast, when we said good-bye any morning it could be our last farewell. It did make for a kind of exciting life. I got used to living every day as the last day of my life, I was the only kid in the fourth grade with a will in my binder, but I was too jumpy, too nervous. I think I kind of developed a mild version of PTSD. One day my father suggested we go on a picnic, he thought we should do that before a nuclear war destroyed the world the next week. I had a good feeling about picnics, they seemed like light, optimistic events. I pictured a blanket flown in by bluebirds and a feast of fried chicken and potato salad and cake spread out on a green lawn, a smiling family, butterflies, baby deer looking on nearby----and we had our picnic---but we had it in a cemetery. I remember eating cherry pie among the tomb stones and my father pointing west where the bomb would drop on Fort Knox, and promising myself that when I was a father I would do it differently, instead of doom I would point to the promise of better times.
And my day came when I was ordained a priest. My father was a vocal atheist and a perpetual pessimist, so I figured that I had become a kind of rebuttal to my father. I was a believer and an optimist. I became the father that I always wanted. And people called me Father. I had not expected how wonderful that would feel. It was especially nice out in public, out in the world. If I looked lost people would ask me, "Can I help you Father?." If I stepped out into the street the traffic stopped for Father. When I got on an airplane people looked relieved. I overheard a woman say one time, "We're safe----the father's here." People were so kind to me. If I ate out in public my meal was always paid for; if I got stopped by a policeman for speeding he never gave me a ticket, the officer usually apologized. And I began to listen to the texture in people's voices when they called me "Father". I heard respect and warmth and trust: respect like a tree, warmth like a leaf, trust like a flower. I heard in the word "Father" the gentle, majestic mystery of God. I was a little stunned that I was carrying that in myself, that the little father that was me was a touchstone to the great Father of us all. Then about a year into my priesthood my father started coming to church. Not every Sunday, but now and then. He would always sit up front and shake his head when I said something about God and he would sing the hymns very loudly with a twang like a country music singer and at my weddings he would sit in the back by himself and smile. It was like he was a parishioner, sitting among my other parishioners. Now as a priest you get to know people as they are, you visit them when they're sick, you hear their confessions, you listen to their prayers, you know their secrets. The effect this had on me was to open my heart to the struggle we all have in being human and there was my father, another struggling human. My dad started to be a person, in my mind, rather than simply a disappointment. One day I was at home for Sunday dinner and my mother announced that she and my father were going to become Catholics. I was shocked and asked my father if he had started believing in God. And he laughed and said, "Heavens No, I haven't started believing in God. I believe in you, Father. We're joining the church of Tom Baker." My theological self objected, join the Church of Tom Baker. We could all go to hell for that. At that moment my father and I could have become greater strangers. I could have said that in the year I'd been ordained he had not called me Father even one time. And he could have said that I didn't deserve it and besides I had no children, ungrateful children like myself. And I could have countered that if he had been a real father to me I wouldn't have had to go to such elaborate trouble to become the ecclesiastical father I was today. But my spiritual self noticed that my own cynical dad called me Father and I heard his respect and warmth and trust in that wonderful word. Instead of karmic strangers we two fathers chose to be spiritual brothers. At that moment I chose that he be a person to me and he chose that I be a person to him. Martin Buber, the great Jewish philosopher, thought that the whole point of living was to have an I-thou relationship with the important people in our lives and perhaps the not so important people. Most of my life I had an I-it relationship with Dad. I was a person and he was a role that he was playing in a way not to my liking. When he said that he believed in me and called me father it broke open my heart and I let him be a person, a thou, a holy mystery rather than a disappointing Dad.
Jesus had an I-thou relationship with everybody he met. The tax collector was a person, a person in a sneaky disguise but a person non-the-less. Matthew, he said, I know you. The prostitute was a person disguised too, as a woman without boundaries and probably desperate, but Jesus saw a person---Mary, he said, I know you. The leper was a person in a horribly disfigured disguise, but Jesus saw a person---I know you friend, and the leprosy faded away. When my father told me he believed in me and wanted to join the church of Tom Baker, I saw him as a person, finally, and deep in my mind I said I know you Paul, precious friend, and our karma faded away. A Course In Miracles has a saying that is my very favorite: The Holiest place on earth is where an ancient hatred has become a present love. It would look good on a Father's Day card.
In the above talk, which I gave at the Fellowship of the Inner Light on June 15, 2008 (Fathers Day) both the principles of the ego and the Holy Spirit are illustrated. From the ego's perspective, we never have enough. My father was not enough for me. His ego told him that the little he had would soon be taken from him so he was always afraid of death and dealt with that fear by constantly predicting (or planning for) doom. Predicting and planning are ways in which the ego has us handle our anxiety. My father liked to visit cemeteries because, as he put it, he could meet death head on. Psychologically this is called a counter-phobic approach to fear. Instead of running from his fear he confronts it, fighting rather than fleeing. This is also an ego strategy sometimes said to be more manly or courageous than running away. He took the same approach to God, assertively proclaiming that he was an unbeliever, as if daring God to object. My ego suggested that I blame my father for many of my failings and see him as a failed parent. When he started attending my church I began to be more willing to hear the Holy Spirit and begin to see my father as a person rather than a disappointing stereotype. At the time he began attending my church I was dealing with the stereotypes people had of me as a priest. My wanting to be seen as a person helped me be more willing to see my father through the Holy Spirit's eyes as a person as well. The moment of reunion or miracle came about at the Sunday dinner. When I felt he really saw me for me (believed in me) I felt joy and all the past disappointment was gone and has never returned. The ego often uses people in our lives to represent both our loss of God and our loss of innocence. The most popular of these are fathers, mothers, and spouses. The people we sometimes deify and then reject with disillusioned bitterness. At any point in that process, the Holy Spirit is ready with the miracle.
The assignment for Sunday, June 29th is T. Chapter 5, III. The Guide to Salvation; W. Lesson 63, The Light of the world brings peace to every mind through my forgiveness; M. Clarification of Terms 6. THE HOLY SPIRIT.
© Copyright Tom Baker 2008