Obviously my past has been filled with a comedy of errors. Mine has been a life marred by dreadful misjudgments in matters of family, money and of affairs of the heart. While I should have learned from these experiences, they only served to further obscure my vision, blinding me to the truth. Past mistakes should have been illuminating, warning me of the dangers that lie ahead.
Instead, my past failures served as boundaries restricting me to a worldview filled with limitation and barring me from a world of infinite possibilities. I couldn’t take a step ahead without subconsciously glancing back over my shoulder at past failures. I would forever be standing in my own way, a pallbearer at my own funeral.
My past failures, suppressed mostly to preserve some degree of hope, ate away at the core of my beliefs. Regardless of my intentions or resolutions to overcome my addictions, I was doomed to fail.
Clearly, I have led a life of misdeeds, missed opportunities, and failed attempts. I have been a con, a cheat, a liar, a thief, an adulterer, a womanizer, drug dealer, a pimp, a failed father, a statutory rapist and most of all a fool.
Yet, not being a part of my children’s life, not being there to raise them and watch them grow, cut the deepest. Ironically enough, as a teacher, I was surrounded by kids all day, teaching other people’s children while neglecting my own.
For years I drank to forget. When I closed my eyes at night, I saw them, helpless, alone, and groping in the darkness in search of their father. Television became my sedative, as I feared the silence and the demons that lay on the other side of consciousness.
Before leaving for Virginia, I was a weekend dad, picking them up on Friday and returning them to their mother on Sunday night. We had some joyous times sandwiched in between the disappointments.
Anyway, that Sunday Ivy had to work and asked if I would take them to school on Monday morning. I remember watching them scurrying across the empty schoolyard, dressed in their school uniforms with their book bags flapping. Then, my youngest turned, raised his tiny hand and waved goodbye with just the tips of his fingers. Then, his sister hurried him inside. My heart was forever branded with that image. I million words couldn’t have better underscored my failure as a father.
I have been waving goodbye ever since. The hurt cut deep. But even after the wounds heeled, the scars remained; scars that would never heel. Seeing a dad playing with his kids in the park or simply walking in the mall would send me tumbling into a freefall of shame and regret.
And, then there was the treatment of my parents, a poisonous pill to swallow indeed. I know now how it feels to be taken for granted by those who owe you the most. I have died a thousand deaths regretting my conduct as a son. Most would consider my having to suffer the same fate as my unappreciated parents’ poetic justice. Count me among them.
I see now that the future was always the destroyer of my present, and architect of my troubled past. The future was cast back into my present in the form of that brass ring. More specifically, everything that I’ve ever done was in anticipation of the future. The future always promised a better day, a pot of gold just out of reach.
All mistakes made in the present would be magically undone in the future. Somehow the future would rescue me from the present mistakes and all past wrongs would be made right. Thus, I was blinded to the eternal truth that the boundary-less present is all there is. It took a great deal of pain to come to that simple unassailable truth.
My quest for that truth brought me to Carl Jung, the imminent psychologist. Through his works, I learned of the importance of symbols and dreams, even going so far as to record a dream diary. His monumental works unearthed the existence of a shadow-self, a persona, and the all-knowing archetypal or original patterns of life.
From there, I launched into a host of New Age, metaphysical, Eastern philosophical and existential explorations. All of which shed some light on my dark and uncontrolled ego. I came to slowly and painstakingly realize that my ego, while only a servant, had been allowed occupying his master’s house, wearing his master’s clothes, and pretending to be his master.
In the solitude my daily morning meditations, I detected the sound of my inner self and in so doing freed myself from a dungeon of false identity. Becoming reacquainted with myself, I ascended the throne and reclaimed the spiritual crown that was rightfully mine. For the first time in my life, I took ownership of my problems, thus becoming master of my soul. My fate was in my hands and my hands alone. I was on the road to full recovery.
But, what was I to do with this newly discovered freedom. The masterful writings of William James, Joseph Campbell, or Carlos Casteneda could not tell me what to do with my newfound agency.
On the contrary, their spiritual and philosophical insights only whet my appetite for something more. I had to discover that which is beyond the sensory world, the world behind the world. I longed to become one with that which is without beginning and is without end; that which stretches beyond time but is ever-present; that which resides in all things but never splinters.
The cosmic models and elaborate metaphors no longer sufficed. My mind understood, as only a mind can, but my spirit continued to thirst for the awe-inspiring vistas beyond intellect. That which I sought after lies on the other side of words, and is as delicate and elusive as a dream forgotten.
My tortured and tormented soul reached out for Him and He was there, where He had always been, in the stillness and the silence. But, He is incarnated in the shimmer on the water, in the wind that sway the treetops, and in the solid earth beneath my feet. And, He is a part of everyone I meet. He is ever present in their laughter, in their smiles and in their tears.
My search drew me to the core principles of world religions, what I referred to as the Science of the Spirit. In Virginia I marveled at prismatic sunrises, bathed in cool breezes off crystal lakes, and played connect the dots on the night sky.
No longer seduced by the specious light of the moon (the money, the drugs, the sex), I turned my eyes to the source (the sun). My spirit risen aloft, I pondered the divine laws that stir the waters of life, giving birth to creation, and the propagation of infinite worlds of wonder.
Though, still of an earthly mind and harboring a reluctance to let go, I turned to prayer. And, God answered me, evidence of the unseen revealed in a soundless whisper. Through my faith in Him, I was transformed. He took from me the thirst for alcohol and drugs. And, in its place, gave me a deep and abiding love of life, a life beyond getting and spending, a life absent of willful ignorance and self-delusion.
My fears and doubts, solidified by years of self-indulgence, were confronted head on. These fierce demons proved weak and wanting once exposed to the light of hope. I was finally free from the shackles of my discontent. It was like the primordial sun rising and rolling back the remnants of the eternal night.
Suddenly, I had the solution to all of life’s challenges. No longer did I have to wait for good fortune to rain down on me. I only have to draw from the well. My mother was right all along:”God can make a way where there is no way.”
Is my life perfect? The answer is a resounding no. Do I continue to make mistakes? My long season of darkness is not yet over. I am still destitute of light, but my soul rejoices with the coming of the Son. It would be perilous for me to ignore my flaws and weaknesses. To do so would only feed my demon addictions including drugs, alcohols and lust. For even in the Garden of Eden, the serpent and the apple were an ever-present lure. Thus, my faith is and will continue to be strongly tested, temptation ever present waiting to pounce from the shadows.
I have lived a life marred by shadows of the past and preoccupied by mirages that claim to be the future. Yet, instead of being a slave to tomorrow, I have learned to live in the Now-Moment, leaving tomorrow in God’s safekeeping.
The divine and eternal moment is all that I have, or every will have and it is enough. The Now-Moment has no past, no future. I live only in the now, and in the now I AM.
Today, I can say, because of my faith in God that I am a better father, a better husband, and a better man because of Him. Fore, I have learned that to love and be loved is the most that life has to offer.
I have escaped my prison of SHADOW AND SMOKE through the power of eternal love and forgiveness of self and others. And, in the end, the Living Presence assures that everyone achieves happiness in the end and all creation works to that end. I think the poet and warrior, Bob Dylan, sums up my life best.
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin’
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a changin’
