Fragile

Saturday, 23 June 2018

Decent temperatures have held throughout the week, making being in the dirt and fields just fine. Around five, some rain came, not much, but enough to interrupt my work. It was fine. Didn’t mind quitting for the day at that point. It’s Saturday anyhow. I really appreciate Sundays.

One of my best friends is pictured below. I miss her like water. Dream about her. Delicate, fragile, and so beautiful.

I am repulsed by people who don’t like or care about animals. My father is like that. At times, I’ve wondered if he holds a hatred for them. I’m not exaggerating. It’s bizarre. He has this screwed up religious belief that humans are masters of the Earth (as opposed to stewards). Animals are mindless robots responding to stimuli with absolutely no interiority. No level of consciousness. I place that belief as being at home in maybe the 1600s. Someone from the 1700s would surely be shocked by its backwardness.

I don’t understand him. His choices and many of his values. However, it’s the choices I’m most interested in. Maybe priorities would be a better word. Why teaching, showing me things, was always so low.
It occurs to me that perhaps he viewed himself as a provider, which was all that was necessary. It’s not.

To be a parent, of course, is to learn about yourself through your child. Were there things in me, and thus in him, that my father could not bear to look upon? To be a good parent, then, is to be courageous and strong.

When we fail ourselves we, in turn, fail those who are closest to us. I wonder: How many have I let down?

I know the answer too: Many.

With this lens, I can see the importance, the necessity, of religion.

In particular, what Frank Herbert had to say in the spectacular Dune series:

Religion must remain an outlet for people who say to themselves, “I am not the kind of person I want to be.” It must never sink into an assemblage of the self-satisfied.

To love another, one must risk being vulnerable. Must risk everything. Thus, the courageous and the strong. Without risk, what is the value of anything?

Again, Frank Herbert:

Is your religion real when it costs you nothing and carries no risk?

These conclusions I am drawing sadden me. What do they say of my father? And therefore, by extension, of me?