TODAY IS MY ninth Father’s Day on this go-around. If any of you try to ask me where those 108 (which also happens to be the exact number of beads on a mala prayer bead rosary, holy holy holy!) months have gone, I will not be able to offer an answer sufficient enough to cover all the bases. Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’ into the future.
But I can tell you that I am a father, and I can tell you it is a glorious, miraculous thing to be a father, and I can tell you that I have written a book (The Energy of God) in which this is mentioned, and I can tell you that I am about to share that excerpt from that book (The Energy of God) here with you in order to express things to you.
So, enjoy… and HAPPY FATHER’S DAY to all other caretakers!
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From The Energy of God
Chapter 4: IMAGE: Face to Face
ANOTHER FACE THAT HAS been given to God is that of a father. This is perhaps the most familiar description used in describing God to ourselves and others, and this image does fit well for many people. Realizing that God is love and that love made everything, including us, we realize we are products of love—the children of love. Love is our parent.
Yeshua himself encouraged his friends to visualize the energy of God this way, saying When you pray, when you reach out to cross the distance and connect with the energy of God, do it like this: Our Father who is all around us, we quiet ourselves to recognize you are the energy and purity in all things. May all beings come to know you and be you. We trust that we will have all we need this day, as we remember that we have never been let down before. We forgive those who have offended us as we ask forgiveness of anyone we may have offended ourselves. Help us to find and choose the most loving way in every circumstance, and deliver us from all separation.
It is important to understand and remember that any face or symbol is just that: a tool to assist our human minds in relating to its senses and its world around it. Visualizing the energy of God as a parent may be exactly how one person can tap into that energy best, but it may be a completely useless concept to another. There are many whose human parents were not so unconditionally loving, or were outright abusive, making it very difficult and even repulsive for them to think of God as a parent. For them, maybe visualizing the energy of God as the Universe all things are in, the atoms everything is made of, or any other concept and imagery they are comfortable with may be the connection they need. God is all and is in all, so there can be no wrong way to relate to this energy and the love that it is.
I learned far more what the energy of God is like when I became a parent myself than I did from years of studying books and experimenting with traditions and practices. Love undeniably requires action. Love requires actually doing something. Actions speak louder than words. Being something, becoming directly involved in something leads to a much greater understanding than simply observing from the sidelines or imagining what a thing is like, just as the best and quickest way to learn a new language is to live directly among the people whose language you want to learn—to dive right in.
When my daughter was born, everything changed. Everything I’d ever imagined about being a parent or what it was like to love another being was shown to fall tremendously short of the real deal. I also began to understand many things my own parents must have felt, emotions and processes they must have gone through, and began to see why they may have done certain things, the human struggles they may have been experiencing and reacting from.
The greatest impact that happened to me in becoming a parent was having all images and notions I had struggled with of a punitive, angry, and judgmental parent-God completely tossed out the window. The instant I became a father, I knew that if the energy of God was like a father, there was no way on earth there was any room for delighting in holding anger and grudges, finding pleasure in dishing out punishments, or any form of hateful disapproval whatsoever. When we so deeply and naturally love something that came from us—something that is a part of us—no thought of joyfully catching them being wrong in any way and getting to throw them into time-out or a fiery pit for all eternity has any space to exist. In fact, we will overlook a million things and go out of our way to get them whatever they want, gladly going without something for ourselves to arrange things for them.
When our children are tiny and learning to walk, we don’t scowl at them in disappointment or yell at them in anger when they only make it a step or two before falling. We spread our arms wide and smile and cheer and call encouragements out to them: Come on, Baby! You can do it! You’ve got this! Look at you—you’re doing it! If we who are humans on earth can love our own children so unwaveringly even as they fail and fall, how can we imagine the energy of God being any different than this?
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