Testifying to the King of Swords
Mar. 24th, 2008 07:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qosWhen my dad took his leave this afternoon, he said, "I'd like to spend an afternoon sometime soon listening to your story of your faith journey. It would be with a non-judgemental mindset. I just don't know anything about what you've been doing in this area, and I'd like to understand."
I should be delighted by his request. My dad is expressing a sincere interest in what I believe.
But I have no idea how I can tell him the truth. My father was a fundamentalist Christian for a long time, and when he lost his faith, he lost it utterly. He continued to believe that Christian ethics -- which to him meant love of neighbor and the 10 commandments -- were the best rules for living he knew of, but as far as I know he lost any sense of the mystical or transcendent.
If I had remained some flavor of Christian, or converted to any major world tradition he could probably find some way of connecting, simply due to his respect for tradition and history. But his intellectual sophistication has never had room for what in my family was routinely dismissed as the "weird."
And my current spiritual path is weird.
I just started to type "My father's opinion means so much to me."
And then I remembered that I did a ritual three weeks ago in which one of the things I released was my need to uphold and fulfill the expectations of my family and undergraduate college.
Looks like I'm going to be asked to stand and deliver on that in a way I hadn't expected.
My father's opinion still means a lot to me.
But I have to be able to separate myself from the "daddy's girl" urgency of needing to have his approval that I've felt all my life.
The irony is that I pride myself on my ability to find the right language to "translate" the concepts of one spiritual worldview or perspective into that of another so it can be understood and rendered less alien, scary, or weird. But I don't know if I can do it in this case.
It's going to take some thought.
I should be delighted by his request. My dad is expressing a sincere interest in what I believe.
But I have no idea how I can tell him the truth. My father was a fundamentalist Christian for a long time, and when he lost his faith, he lost it utterly. He continued to believe that Christian ethics -- which to him meant love of neighbor and the 10 commandments -- were the best rules for living he knew of, but as far as I know he lost any sense of the mystical or transcendent.
If I had remained some flavor of Christian, or converted to any major world tradition he could probably find some way of connecting, simply due to his respect for tradition and history. But his intellectual sophistication has never had room for what in my family was routinely dismissed as the "weird."
And my current spiritual path is weird.
I just started to type "My father's opinion means so much to me."
And then I remembered that I did a ritual three weeks ago in which one of the things I released was my need to uphold and fulfill the expectations of my family and undergraduate college.
Looks like I'm going to be asked to stand and deliver on that in a way I hadn't expected.
My father's opinion still means a lot to me.
But I have to be able to separate myself from the "daddy's girl" urgency of needing to have his approval that I've felt all my life.
The irony is that I pride myself on my ability to find the right language to "translate" the concepts of one spiritual worldview or perspective into that of another so it can be understood and rendered less alien, scary, or weird. But I don't know if I can do it in this case.
It's going to take some thought.
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 07:01 am (UTC)& of course one's father is not just anyone, which makes it all the more complicated. I have faith that your ability to translate applies with your father too. Hopefully by asking, he's wanting to try & meet you partway. Definitely interested to hear what you come up with/how it goes.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-25 06:20 pm (UTC)And don't worry so much about what he thinks, at least not in a hypercritical manner. (I have the same issue, too.) It's hard not to internalize the negative emotions of those we love, especially when they're directed towards us, but try to keep a bit detached if he gets upset over something.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-26 12:37 am (UTC)no, I think that this is an excellent opportunity to challenge some fears & discomfort around familial expectations.
thank you
Date: 2008-04-05 11:14 pm (UTC)