Being your own man

I knew a man, and I called him Father. You see, Father was just like myself, only bigger and stronger with a lot more interesting stories to tell. He was a very quiet man who talked about things I couldn’t understand and therefore didn’t take seriously… I was just there for the stories.

Father told me he left his father and mother at about the same age I was starting to enjoy the attention I was getting from having a deep voice. He said he left home and returned occasionally. He had tasted freedom and couldn’t be caged anymore. He left home to be one with his dreams and also get away from the distractions keeping him from getting more familiar with them. It’s almost like the story he used to tell myself and my siblings, about a man called Abram, who was told by God to leave his family and get acquainted with the unknown, only latching on to the instructions given to him by this Guy he could not see.

Father left home and became one with his dreams. Eventually, he found that same God that spoke to Abram, and they both started to share dreams. Father lived differently from most of his age mates and I couldn’t understand it. His age-mates seemed way cooler than he and I admired them a lot, sometimes even more than I admired him. These people were looked at with awe and a lot of people seemed to like them. I wanted to be like them. These people would offer him some red juice but he would reject the offer politely; they would offer him painting jobs (as he was an artist) and he would reject them as well like he didn’t have fees to pay and mouths to feed. I didn’t understand it.

As I said before, Father had lots and lots of stories to tell; some of them were about his experiences but most were from this bestseller his God wrote and it was called Bible; this same God that spoke to Abram. We had a lot of talks, Father and I, and from these talks, it was clear that his reality was different from ours, and by “ours,” I mean myself and every other person who didn’t think like him. You see, that book his God wrote was where he was living day and night, and that was where the difference in his actions came from. His face would light up every time he was sharing contents of discussions he and his God were having; he didn’t really know how to communicate as we earthlings did anymore. He spoke from a different realm, a higher realm.

I grew older and some things Father spoke about when I was little started to make sense. Like how a soft answer turned away wrath for instance; or how when drawing, to draw exactly what I saw in front of me, from form to shade, no matter how poorly, just draw.

Another sound he tried drumming into my head was standing up for myself and being independent. “I wouldn’t be here forever,” he would always say. To be able to speak boldly about what you inherently believe is true strength; especially when what you believe doesn’t make sense to the rest of the world.

Father was an earthling too, but he wasn’t so involved in earthling culture. He fixed his gaze constantly upon where he knew he was from, his eyes were always up. He spoke his truth in public and I witnessed it, a lot of people witnessed it; he spoke his truth in private, also. And even though I used to cringe half the time because I was worried about what people would say and the negative effects that might have on his mind, that wasn’t what took him, meaning there was no point in my worrying.

As time went on, I enjoyed standing by him, simply because he spoke his truth and it was something I had come to admire. I stood by him because he stood by me all these years. I stood by him because he provided for me. I stood by him because he made me know he loved me through his words and his actions. I stood by him because he encouraged me. I stood by him because he was there. So by all means Pops, you have the floor, speak your truth.

Father said he behaved the way he behaved because we, his offspring were watching, as well as our kids, even though my niece hadn’t been born yet; because “Levi paid tithes in Abraham.”

“What will Father do” is our mantra now in difficult situations and decisions, and it’s simply because “for just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.”

Because he chose to live for the future.

Happy Father’s day!