History – Are We There Yet?

Dean called today from California….

Among other things, we discussed the weather. The “Mamas and Papas” played in my head as I listened, expecting him to conjure balmy, beach-breezes. Instead, I saw his fifty degrees, and raised him, with my seventy.

Every call from Dean brings with it, a memory of a sunny, southern, summer day….

I held the car door open for Charlie, The World’s Best Dog, as I surveyed my surroundings. Dean busied himself in his truck-bed, in search of some kind of tool, to the accompaniment of the sort of greeting only Zan is capable of giving.

“Well…” It is one of her favorite words, and usually spoken loudly. “…there she is!”

She approached, in her uniform of Levi’s and ribbed tank, arms outstretched. Even then, something told me to savor every one of those vanilla-scented hugs…

Hallie was coming home, after an out-of-town visit, and we were preparing her welcome. Coaxing soap-scum off a ceramic bathtub, Zan sang:
“I feel lucky, I feel lucky, yeah
No Professor Doom gonna stand in my way
Mmmmm, I feel lucky today.”

I joined in, and we sang. We laughed, and we sang, and we scrubbed, and we loved, as Charlie, The World’s Best Dog, curled up in a corner, and Dean busied himself outside.

Zan and I emerged from the cool darkness of the house to the sight of Dean, and a ladder. I don’t remember the incident. I can’t recall what raised her ire. But, I won’t forget the epitaph, “Ladder Bastard”. From Zan’s lips, to my memory, the words burn nearly twenty years later.

I remembered them today, as we spoke. I wondered if Dean was bothered by them, or if like me, he remembered them with fondness for a sunny, southern, summer day.

“I’ve got some new music for your site!”, Dean started as though we’d spoken just yesterday.

“Cool!”, was my response. “What is it?”

He answered, the conversation continued, and later, I looked up his suggestions. They are what I would expect from Dean, uniquely diverse, and I’m glad for the connection…

“>

The World History class was required for my degree. I have no particular interest in World History.

The professor, a bespectacled, soft-spoken man; dumpy, mousy, and pastey.

Within a week, unheeded, I was bringing a Bible to class. As he methodically dissected human history from it’s very beginnings, he hearkened back to that holiest of texts, debunking fiction after fiction until the leather-bound volume in my back-pack became akin to an early incarnation of Aesop’s fables.

And he never raised his voice, or spoke in tongues, or gestured wildly, or challenged, or questioned. He stated facts, eloquently, quietly, and intelligently.

I aced the class. He changed my life.

I remember, as a child, following my mink enshrouded mother into the sanctuary and becoming aware of countless pairs of feminine eyes taking her measure. Inside my child’s brain, the experience felt incongruous.

I remember sitting and listening to my ancient Sunday School teacher recite, by rote, long passages of contradictory verse, and as I sat, looking at the faces around me for some sign that I wasn’t the only one who suspected we were all part of some kind of wild mind-bending experiment.

I saw lots of things…

I saw rapt eyes over gaped mouthes.

I saw girls whispering, posturing, and primping, and boys, doodling or dexteriously fashioning paper footballs whose mitered edges never really resembled a football, at all.

I saw lots of yawns.

But, I never saw real doubt.

I didn’t dare to interrupt Dr. Dick’s diatribe. I sat, obediently, until creativity, in the form of a more adventurous friend, suggested we skip Sunday School. A local shopping plaza absorbed the time, until our parents came to collect us, none the wiser.

Later, as an adult, I began what has been suggested to be a genetically inclined quest for knowledge. My father, you see, while seldom attending church, has spent his life in study of various relgions and spiritual dictates.

I began to read and study religions of all types.

I read the Book of Mormon from cover to cover, finding some solace in it’s words, but more interest in it’s story.

I have read several different versions of the Bible, ranging from King James to New World, as the highlighted pages of my current, more traditional, volume will attest.

I read, with interest, L. Ron Hubbard’s, “Dianetics”.

I have studed Daoism, Buddhism, and currently own two translations of the Tao Ching; one stays at home, the other travels with me. This poetic text has served me well in times of unrest and insecurity…

After over 40 years of research, and soul-searching, and education, and experience, I have reached a place of comfort.

As I sit on my patio, early morning light dances between green needles in the towering pines that surround my landscape. And birds, whose very existence attests to a power greater than that enjoyed by any man, dart to and fro in my periphery. As I breathe the soft, clean air of daybreak, I know, deep in my soul, a loving power. A higher power. A wiser power. A driving energy that exists within every living thing.

And this knowledge imbues in me a respect for all creation; from the smallest insect to the largest mammal.

And it soothes me, with the surety that deep within each us is a voice, full of reason, full of love, and flush with wisdom.

Our impetus is to listen; to listen and to hear, to allow this rich wisdom to permeate our consciousness and guide us, without restrictions imposed by those who would control behavior in an effort to create a monochromatic society, without traditions imposed by those soothed by sameness, without dictates that would keep us from recognizing our true potential as fellow holy spirits.

Tag: History

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