Ghosts

What a trip it was. It was exhausting, and it was exhilarating. It was thrilling, it was boring. I was anxious and I had a peace which surpasses understanding.

I traveled 2,600 miles with my sons, a rolling expedition over highways and byways, through the largest sink valley in the world, and through several deserts. That ol’ van climbed over the Sierra Nevada's and parked along the Pacific Ocean. We negotiated packed angry L.A. freeways and wide open spaces without another vehicle in sight.

All that terrain was a challenge to the vehicle (and driver), but the terrain of the heart and soul was more challenging. There were ghosts.

Sometimes we lend our fears more power than they deserve. We become anxious about things that will be all right. We worry over events past and events future which rob us of enjoying of the present. We whisper our fears in the secet places of our hearts, unconscious incantations creating amorphous monsters within.

I paused on the way south in the town of my childhood... and found myself disillusioned by a house, a street, a community that is smaller than I remember.

The ghosts of those memories loomed large.

It was in that 2nd floor room overlooking Plumas street that I learned to fear ghosts... some from the house across the street, from within the walls of the room I shared with my brothers. I once set a trap for the Boogie Man in front of the bedroom door... of wire clothes hangers and kite string. All I caught was my father. He wasn’t amused.

Looking at that house this week I saw other ghosts. Missing trees, a house diminished in stature when seen by a soul having traveled an additional 45 years. On the corner was the ghost of the church which housed spiritual epiphanies for a five year old.

A disappointing bout of nostalgia... not that great a tussle with ghosts of the past.

I was more concerned about the ghost of my father.

In my heart he is still a giant who terrifies with speed and strength and anger.

The point of the whole journey was to meet up with my father, see him off on a dangerous stunt he yearned to complete, and to wrestle with the ghosts of my own fears... and faith.

I felt a pressure to “witness” to him, an attempt meet the command of “the great commission” in my own family, and to let him know that people of faith, well this person of faith anyway, can love without strings attached.

I discovered that he was no longer a giant, in fact he has lost a little height, is shorter than he was a few years ago, shorter than me.

Father & Son

It turned out that suspending judgment was easier than I thought it would be. I smiled and nodded encouragement when he told stories of his life in Thailand. I set aside my distaste over prostitution and the inequities between wealth and poverty, third and first world cultures, and I discovered that there was a gentleness behind my father’s stories.

I saw the genuine affection he has for friends and neighbors, for children and monks and girl friends and prostitutes. I saw how the Buddhist attitude he has picked up from that culture has helped him see each person as having value, having a soul that is eternal, that is beyond the actions within life itself.

I felt a genuine affection for him as I listened to the stories that were tinged with sadness or bravado or pride and even an occasional hint of humility.

I felt my heart warm toward him with a love for him, my own reaction to his soul, though not tinged with the Buddhist view of eternity.

Suddenly I saw that simply loving my father was all that was required of me.

That is it. Nothing more.

I needn’t tell him about the steps to salvation, or make the case for church attendance, or even for prayer.

All I need tell him, all I need show him, was that I loved him.

And I do. I love him.

And I watched a ghost fade away.

As I type this the hairs are standing up on my arms. It is that powerful. A ghost has been exercised. In loving my father I am freed. In giving him respect and acknowledge that he is a soul created in the image of the creator of the universe I find that the man who terrified me, who nearly killed my brother and I, the one who shouted and controlled and was a thundering titan to a small child, is a soul I love and forgive, and am willing to sacrifice for.

I think that this is a lesson my Lord has given me. That in the end, love is all that matters. I think I understand a little how He loved others so well, even those who would betray Him.

“Love God with all your heart, and mind and soul, and love others as you love yourself.”

Love.

I suspect that the feeling of superiority I sometimes feel when I deem others as non-christian is truly a sin. In evaluating the faith of others, in evaluating the lives of others, I cease to love, cease to obey Jesus.

There were other ghosts on this trip as well.

There was the echoes of relationships, ways of behaving, with my sister, with my mom.

My sister, a strong Christian, has offended my father with her judgmental comments, her passive-aggressive words always implying deeper meanings.

I found that in simply loving her, in not replying to challenging statements, just loving, the ghosts of past arguments failed to materialize.

On the journey home there were massive thunderheads. It was difficult to appreciate their true size. They were so large, that they could be seen from over a hundred miles away, their tiny companions grew huge as the miles rolled beneath the van, and still the giants beyond them loomed over the mountains.

Thunderhead

The clouds were beautiful, their amorphous nature suggesting shapes to our minds as we climbed toward the Siskiyous. And they dropped heavy rain and released bolts of lightning as we climbed toward the Oregon border.

Note: that teeny dark cloud,
the one in front of the dark grey thunderhead,
just above the horizon is actually very large

Clouds are nature’s ghosts. They are born in invisible vapors over the ocean, drift across uninhabited seas, and materialize as they are squeezed as they climb mountains.

Likewise, my own ghosts rise out of small thoughts, small fears, and materialize only when squeezed by the mountains of experiences in my own life.

Like the clouds which washed the dust of deserts off our van, my ghosts have dropped their loads and I see them as simple metaphors of living and loving and forgiving.

My father plans on making another attempt at that record in November, a time that is supposed to be particularly difficult with high winds.

I feel no desire to go.

Not that I haven’t concerns for his safety.

But the desire to see him one last time, or to tell him about my faith, or to simply tell him that I love him, has evaporated.

Another wonderful part of this trip was the time I spent with my sons. I was able to talk to them for hours and hours and answer all sorts of questions and simply let them know over and over and over how much I love them.

First stop in Yosemite, the waterfall is probably 40 feet high

On the way home they told me many times how much they love me... sweet words.

"You know, what, Dad?," Isaac said. "There isn't anyone else in the whole world I would rather have be my dad."

I spent some time in prayer in one of the most beautiful places on Earth.

In the valley

We traveled through Yosemite, pausing to appreciate granda vistas, listen to brooks and streams, watch wildlife feeding in meadows, listen to the roar of waterfalls.

Momma deer & 2 fawns

El Capitan

Elk

A place to pray

I still have other fears in my life. Things I need to work through, to understand, relationships to repair.

But this journey of thousands of miles was a greater journey of the heart.

I think many of us have ghosts. Fears and anxieties over things we know will really be allright.

My blessing this past week was the exorcism of some of those ghosts.

It was a good trip.