I loved my dad.
He wasn’t “the perfect father” (is there such a person) but he was a decent man who had the emotional maturity to be able to tell his son and his daughters that he loved them.
One of the greatest gifts he gave me, throughout my teens and into young adulthood, was his willingness to openly talk and listen. Our routine was to either go for a walk (typically down through one of the local greenbelts) or to go to a donut shop (usually a Winchell’s Donut House). And I talked. I could talk about anything: girls, grades, my hopes for the future, mom. And he listened. He listened without judging or shaming or projecting his own shadow onto me. And he talked too. He shared his wisdom wrought from experience; he shared his opinions; he shared his love.
Now don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t all a bed of roses (his favorite flower, by the way).
As a teen and young adult, I developed the capacity to be a real ass. I procrastinated. I had a nasty habit of starting things and then never finishing them. That annoyed the heck out of him. And I hated being told what to do. I pushed back. And when I got a little to headstrong, he’d hit me with this line that was strangely devastating.
“Who the hell do you think you are!?!” he’d bellow. And that would stop me in my tracks.
I don’t recall how many times we had that exchange. It always ended in both of us going off in exasperated silence to our own corners of the house. I do, however, remember the last time it happened.
Our argument had spilled out into the front lawn, probably because I was going to leave and he came after me. And he dropped that line: “Who the hell do you think you are?!?” And this time I turned on him and responded.
“I DON’T KNOW, DAD! THAT’S THE FUCKIN’ PROBLEM! I DON’T KNOW WHO I AM!” And that hit him… and he never asked me that question again.
As a teen and young adult, I was an avid spiritual seeker. I wanted to be a mystic. I wanted to experience God directly. I wanted a personal relationship with the Beloved. I had so many pseudo-mystical experiences growing up that I stopped counting. But I still fell lost—like something was missing.
I remember when I was around twenty (still living at home), I changed my name. I guess I was trying to define who “I” was. Mom took it ok but dad… I remember telling him at the donut shop. He heard my words. His face got red… his lips tightened together. After a period of silence, he wrote my former name on a napkin and then crossed it out: “That’s me,” he said, pointed to the words—his middle and last name—that he had crossed out. In my search to find who I was and to make my own name, I had, inadvertently—in his eyes—crossed him out.
It wasn’t until many years later, after finding Mile Hi Church, while in the beginning Science of Mind class doing a guided imagery process, that I finally had an answer to my father’s question.
In my mind’s eye I was on a path surrounded by darkness. Up ahead, blocking my way, was a huge demon. I kid you not: the classic “Devil.” Red skin, booming voice, horns… the whole deal. And he asked me, “Who the hell do you think you are.” This time, however, I had an answer.
“I am the Divine Self, uniquely expressing and made manifest in human form.” I didn’t think about it… it just popped into my head. It was a response born of a deep insight. It represented a shift; a realization of Truth. And in that moment, the demon turned into an angel and, with a look of infinite love and compassion, he let me pass.
And I finally understood.
You see I had always perceived the question to be a condemnation—not a sincere question but rather an statement implying that I wasn’t worth anything at all. But I was wrong.
The question was a test: “Who the hell do you think you are?” My higher-self/guardian couldn’t let me pass and continue until I knew who I was. He and that question were gatekeepers.
Since then, though my father made his transition many years ago, I have continued to learn—through remembering his example—that I (and all of us) are Love. That is what we are here for. It is our true nature.
We are here as conduits of Love; we are here that the Beloved might experience and express Love through and as us; we are the process of God revealing deeper and deeper levels of God-self, which is Love.
If you want to get this on a deeper level, try this: When faced with challenges and obstacles and chaos “out there,” simply ask yourself, “How can I—in the midst of this experience, this situation—be a greater expression of Love?” “How can I, even with all that is going on “around me,” be a greater revelation of the Beloved?”
LOVE is why you are here. It is what you are here to do and be. It is the Truth of who you are.
Peace, Blessings, & Joy.